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BV  4011.6  .N43  1898 
Newbolt,  W.  C.  E.  1844-1930. 
Priestly  ideals 


PRIESTLY    IDEALS 


BY   THE   SAME  AUTHOR 

THE  GOSPEL  OF  EXPERIENCE;  or,  the  Wit- 
ness of  Human  Life  to  the  Truth  of  Revelation.  Being  the 
Boyle  Lectures  for  1895.    Crown  8vo.     s^r. 

COUNSELS     OF     FAITH     AND     PRACTICE. 

Crown  Bvo.     s^. 

SPECULUM     SACERDOTUM  ;    or,    the    Divine 

Model  of  the  Priestly  Life.    Crown  Bvo.     7^.  dd. 

PENITENCE    AND   PEACE.     Being  Addresses  on 

the  51st  and  23rd  Psalms.     Crown  Bvo.     "zs.  6d. 

THE    FRUIT    OF    THE    SPIRIT.      Being    Ten 

Addresses  bearing  on  the  Spiritual  Life.     Crown  Bvo.     -zs.  6d. 

THE   MAN   OF   GOD.     Being  Six  Addresses  delivered 

during  Lent,  1886.     Small  8vo.     is.  6d. 

THE    PRAYER-BOOK :   its  Voice  and  Teaching. 

Being  Spiritual  Addresses  bearing  on  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer. 
Crown  Bvo.     -zs.  6d. 

LONGMANS,   GREEN,    AND    CO. 

LONDON,  NEW  YORK,  AND  BOMBAY 


PRIESTLY   IDEALS 


BEING 


A  COURSE  OF  PRACTICAL  LECTURES 

DELIVERED  IN  ST.  PAUL'S  CATHEDRAL  TO  ''OUR 

SOCIETY''  AND  OTHER   CLERGY,  IN 

LENT,    1898 


BY  THE   REV. 

W.  C.  e/nEWBOLT,  M.A. 

CANON  AND  CHANCELLOR  OF  ST.  PAUL's  CATHEDRAL 


"  Qui  ergo  alium  doces,  te  ipsum  non  doces ' 


LONGMANS,    GREEN,    AND    CO. 

39   PATERNOSTER   ROW,    LONDON 
NEW  YORK   AND  BOMBAY 

1898 

All  rights  reserved 


TO 
MY     DEAR     FRIEND     AND     COLLEAGUE 

AETHUE    FOLEY 

LORD    BISHOP    OF     STEPNEY 

WHO 

IN   THE   MIDST   OF   ALMOST   UNCEASING   LABOURS 

HAS  LEARNED  TO  FIND 

HIS   STRENGTH 

IN  THE  JOY   OF   THE   LORD 


"  Opus  grande  ego  facio  et  non  possum  descendere." 


PREFACE 

These  Lectures  are  published  in  answer  to  a  strong 
request  on  the  part  of  those  to  whom  they  were 
addressed,  which  I  did  not  feel  at  liberty  to  refuse. 
They  were  undertaken  at  a  very  short  notice,  in 
consequence  of  the  serious  illness  of  the  Rev.  W.  B. 
Trevelyan,  Vicar  of  St.  Matthew's,  Westminster,  who 
was  to  have  delivered  the  Lenten  course  of  "  Our 
Society  "  Lectures.     They  will  be  found  to  contain 
only  simple  thoughts  on  familiar  topics,  of  which 
every  Priest  is  bound  to  remind  himself,  more  espe- 
cially at  a  season  of  solemn  self-examination  such 
as  Lent.     They  are  essentially  ad  clernm,  and  they 
are  designedly  on  subjects  of  practical  importance, 
rather  than  of  theological  or  doctrinal  significance. 
There  has  been  no  attempt,  except  in  a  very  few 
instances,  to  modify  or  adapt  the  plain-speaking 


viii  PREFACE. 

which  such  an  occasion  seemed  to  demand.  It 
would  be  well,  however,  if  the  reader  were  to  bear 
in  mind  that  the  person  on  whom  the  onerous 
duty  of  lecturing  his  brethren  falls,  can  only  do 
so,  with  any  proper  regard  to  modesty  and  self- 
respect,  if  he  makes  it  clearly  to  be  understood 
that  he  includes  himself  in  all  the  shortcomings 
which  have  to  be  lamented,  the  perils  to  be 
avoided,  and  the  temptations  to  be  overcome ;  and 
that  he,  if  any,  keeps  constantly  before  him  the 
motto  prefixed  to  these  lectures,  "  Qui  ergo  alium 
doces,  te  ipsum  non  doces  ?  " 

With  this  reservation,  they  are  committed  to  the 
forbearance  and  kindness  of  my  brethren,  whose 
attendance  and  sympathy,  in  the  midst  of  their 
heavy  Lenten  labours,  were  no  slight  encourage- 
ment and  assistance  to  the  lecturer. 

W.  C.  E.  N. 

3,  Amen  Coukt, 

Feast  of  the  Ascension, 

MDOCOXCVIII. 


CONTENTS 


LECTURE  FAGK 

I.  The  Pkiest  in  his  Private  Devotions 1 

II.  The  Priest  in  his  Church 31 

III.  The  Priest  in  his  Dealings  with  Penitents  ...  59 

IV.  The  Priest  in  his  Parish 85 

V.  The  Priest  in  his  Life  and  Conversation      .    .    .  Ill 


SYNOPSIS   OF   CONTENTS 

LECTUEE  I. 

THE   PEIEST   IN  HIS  PRIVATE  DEVOTIONS. 

Introduction. 

Nature  of  the  present  Course  of  Lectures. 
The  Priest  needs  his  own  Lent. 
I.  Private  devotions :  their  intense  importance  in  our  life. 
The  Priest  "  the  Spiritual  Man  in  the  parish." 
The  encroachment  of  "  Offices." 
Prayerlessness. 
II,  The  power  of  Prayer. 

The  difficulty  of  real  Prayer,  i.e.  of  Prayer  which  is  powerful. 

Prayer,  a  real  part  of  our  work. 

The  three  faculties  employed  in  Prayer— the  understanding, 

the  affections,  the  will. 
The  preparation  for  Prayer. 
III.  Times  of  Prayer. 

"  Pray  without  ceasing." 
The  fixed  hours  of  Prayer. 
Ejaculatory  Prayer. 
Meditation 

Its  system  and  practice. 
Spiritual  power  stands  before  everything  else. 


PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


LECTURE  II. 

THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  CHURCH. 

Introduction. 

The  Parish  Church. 
Its  custodian. 

Rights  of  the  parishioners. 

Certain  uses  of  the  Church  selected. 
I.  The  Priest  at  the  Altar. 

The  transcendent  importance  of  the  Eucharistic  Service. 
The  daily  Celebration. 
The  Eucharistic  Vestments. 
The  witness  of  symbolism  to  the  inner  life. 
II.  The  Divine  Office. 

Its  dignity  and  importance. 

Its  obligation. 

Must  not  be  perfunctory. 

All  part  of  the  day's  work. 

The  association  in  it  of  the  people. 

Its  beauty. 

Its  use  of  Scripture  lections. 
The  Psalter. 
III.  Instruction. 
Sermons. 

Their  importance. 

Their  neglect. 

Their  dignity  to  be  maintained. 
Pour  qualifications  for  a  good  preacher. 

*+*  The  Lecture  on  this  occasion  was  given  in  the  Chapter 
Home,  68,  St.  Paul's  Churchyard. 


SYNOPSIS  OF  CONTENTS. 


LECTURE  III. 

THE  PEIEST  IN   HIS   DEALINGS   WITH  PENITENTS. 

Introduction. 
Dealing  with  sin,  a  great  occupation  of  the  Priest. 
The  fool's  paradise. 
I.  The  Priest  must  make  penitents — 
By  speaking  plainly  about  sin,  and 
By  speaking  about  penitence. 
II.  He  must  find  out  penitents — 
By  being  sympathetic. 
By  being  accessible. 
By  being  discriminating. 

III.  He  must  help  penitents. 

Absolution. 

The  need  of  Confession. 

Confession  of  sins  not  sinfulness. 

The  voice  of  the  Church  on  this  subject. 

Objections. 

"  Direction." 

The  "  dangers  "  of  Confession. 

IV.  The  Priest  himself  the  chief  penitent. 

"  Amplius  lava  me." 

LECTURE  IV. 

THE  PRIEST   IN   HIS   PAEISH. 

I.  The  parish :  its  importance  and  significance. 
Divide  et  impera. 

The  parish :  our  responsibilities  towards  it. 

To  be  scientifically  studied. 

"  Quifacit  per  alium,facit  per  se." 

II.  The  parish,  the  post  assigned  by  God, 


PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


Two  kinds  of  work  in  the  parish. 

1.  The  edification  of  the  faithful. 

The  clergy. 
Lay  helpers  and  teachers. 
The  choir. 
Guilds  and  classes. 
The  communicants. 

2,  Mission  work  to  those  outside  Christian  influences. 

This  to  be  systematized. 
"  Hopelessness  "  a  crimQ. 
"  Hurry  "  a  mistake. 
in.  This  requires  labour. 
The  doctrine  of  "  Gifts." 
Perseverance. 

"Visiting"  with  a  view  to  knowing  the  people. 
Its  use. 

Its  importance. 
Its  joys. 
Its  lessons. 


LECTURE  V. 

THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  LIFE  AND   CONVERSATION. 

I.  "  What  we  are,  comes  before  what  we  teach." 
The  haunting  personality. 
Article  XXVI.  and  its  limitations. 
The  power  for  good  or  evil  of  "  what  we  are." 
The  Tractarians. 
II.  The  Characteristics  of  the  inner  life. 

1.  Bearing  the  Cross. 

2.  Making  full  proof  of  our  ministry. 


SYNOPSIS  OF  CONTENTS. 


3.  Holiness. 

(a)  Cleanliness  of  life. 

(&)  Spiritual  freshness. 

(c)  Spiritual  fulness. 
The  secret  of  happiness  is  within. 
The  great  future  before  the  Church  of  England. 


LECTURE  I. 

THE   PRIEST  IN  HIS  PRIVATE   DEVOTIONS. 

"  Type  of  tlie  wise  wlio  soar,  but  never  roam, 
True  to  the  kindred  points  of  Heaven  and  Home." 

I  SHALL  best  meet  your  wishes,  if  I  mistake  not, 
during  this  holy  season  of  Lent,  in  trying  to  see 
with  you  whether  the  simple  spiritual  mechanism 
of  our  life  is  working  as  it  ought  to  do.  We 
shall  be  speaking  again  and  again  to  our  people, 
in  public  and  in  private,  about  Penitence  and 
Prayer.  It  does  not  look  well  for  a  doctor  to 
be  himself  afflicted  with  the  disease  for  which 
he  professes  to  hold  the  cure.  It  does  not  look 
well  for  the  artist,  who  is  teaching  others  the 
principles  of  beauty,  himself  to  be  unable  to  draw 
a  straight  line.  Am  I  not  right,  dear  brothers, 
in   saying  that   sometimes  it  is  a  sharp  pain — it 


PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


almost  stops  our  mouths  from  a  sense  of  hypocrisy 
and  incongruity — to  have  to  tell  others  how  we 
know  they  may  succeed,  while  we  are  only  too  con- 
scious of  never  having,  at  least  for  some  time,  taken 
the  trouble  to  practise  ourselves  the  advice  which 
we  give  ?  It  is  a  sad  thing  to  tell  others  how 
to  pray,  when  our  spiritual  bow  is  all  unstrung; 
how  to  be  pure,  out  of  a  sadly  soiled  life;  how 
to  control  the  tongue,  when  we  ourselves  allow 
that  unruly  member  to  be  so  unrestrained;  how 
to  be  active,  hopeful,  faithful — ah  !  we  do  not 
say  it,  but  it  lingers  like  a  metallic  ring  round 
our  formal  sermons  and  our  cold  advice,  "  Do  as 
I  say,  not  as  I  do." 

And  may  I  just  say  in  self-defence,  that  if  I 
try  to  enter  into  our  difficulties  fully,  it  is  only 
on  the  always  understood  condition  that  the 
difficulties  of  which  I  shall  speak  belong  to  us 
all  in  common  ?  That  it  is  not  one  Priest  lecturing 
his  brethren,  but  one  priest,  if  you  will,  lecturing 
on  his  own  shrivelled  arm  and  misshaped  spiritual 
life ;  that  from  the  needs  of  one,  and  the  difficulties 
of  one,  we  Priests  may  all  of  us  discover  how  to 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PRIVATE  DEVOTIONS.      3 

get  our  share  of  good  out  of  this  season  of  Lent, 
from  which  we  hope  for  so  much  for  our  people. 


To-day  I  am  asking  you  to  consider  with  me 
the  simplest,  the  commonest  thing,  such  as  we 
might  talk  about  to  our  school  children  or  at 
a  communicants'  guild,  and  yet  so  important, 
so  powerful,  that  we  feel  if  we  were  straight 
and  rightly  furnished  here,  we  should  be  a  match 
for  most  of  the  difficulties  which  the  hardest  day 
puts  before  us.  I  mean  our  private  Devotions, 
our  hidden  life  of  Prayer. 

When  Giotto  was  asked  to  give  a  specimen 
of  his  skill  as  a  draughtsman,  he  took  up  his 
crayon  and  drew  a  faultless  circle — a  poor  ornament 
for  a  palace,  but  a  marvellous  exhibition  of  potential 
art.  We  ask  clergy  who  work  with  us  whether 
they  can  sing,  and  teach,  and  preach,  and  visit,  and 
manage  clubs.  Do  we  ever  ask  them  if  they  can 
pray  ?  Have  we  ever  made  this  an  ambition — more 
than  to  be  a  great  preacher,  to  be  a  great  pray-er  ? 


PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


A  very  great  deal  is  bound  up  in  it.     It  depends 
on  that  tube  swaying  in  the  current,  as  to  how 
long  the  diver  can  stay  in  the  heavy  tide  of  sin 
and   squalor  with   its  dead  weight   of  depression 
all   round   him.     So  long  as  the  air  comes  down 
from  Heaven  in  an  unbroken  course,  he  can  stay 
some  time,  and  work  without  fainting ;  but  apart 
from   it,  he   dies.     So  long  as  the  air-tight  globe 
shuts  in  the  servant  of  God  from  the  atmosphere 
of  this  world,  his  light  can  shine  before  men,  clear 
and  steady.     It  would  be  something  if  our  people 
felt  they  could  count  on  this,  that  in  their  midst 
was   one  who,   having  more   leisure,  and  having 
been  more  richly  endowed  with  the  Holy  Spirit, 
was  more  constantly  in  communion  with  Heaven. 
The  parish  Priest  is  the  spiritual  man  ex  hypothesi, 
in  the  place  where  he  dwells.     Just  as  the  doctor 
is  the  representative  of  medical  skill,  the  lawyer 
of  legal  knowledge,  the  different  professional  men, 
of    different    professional   excellences,   so   we    are 
the  professional  men  of  spiritual  things.     Are  we 
in  danger  of   throwing   this   splendid   distinction 
away,  while  we  go  as  far  as  we  can  to  meet  laymen, 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PRIVATE  DEVOTIONS.       S 


just  to  show  them  that  we  don't  belong  to  a 
sacerdotal  caste ;  while  we  go  half-way  to  meet  the 
infidel,  just  to  show  that  we  are  not  afraid  to  treat 
the  Bible  like  any  other  book ;  while  we  wish  to 
show  that  we  are  not  narrow ;  while  above  all 
things  we  wish  to  show  what  splendid  power  of 
organization  we  possess  ? 

Ah !  I  know  the  rush  and  tear — "  What  time 
have  we  ?  The  ten  minutes  extra  I  meant  to 
have  had  in  the  early  morning — why,  I  am 
worn  out,  I  cannot  get  up!  The  time  in  the 
middle  of  the  day — why,  I  have  an  unceasing 
string  of  interruptions  all  the  morning  through ; 
and  in  the  evening,  after  the  clubs,  the  guilds, 
the  meetings — what  time  have  I  ?  Too  tired  even 
to  go  to  bed  ! " 

Yes — I  say  nothing  about  myself — but  is  it 
kindness  to  my  people  ?  Ought  they,  when  they 
come  to  one  whom  they  hope  to  find  spiritually 
fresh,  find  instead,  one  who  gives  them  spiritual 
things  and  spiritual  advice,  but  only  flattened, 
dead,  dull,  with  all  the  spiritual  bloom  brushed 
off  by  the  continual  wear  and  tear  of  a  too  busy 


PRIESTLY  IDEALS, 


life  ?  If  time  is  to  be  economized  anywhere, 
beware  of  economizing  it  in  times  of  devotion. 
Just  as  the  extravagant  man  will  retrench  in  the 
money  spent  by  him  in  charity,  so  the  spend- 
thrift in  time  is  too  often  tempted  to  economize 
in  his  times  of  devotion ;  but  it  is  a  bad  economy. 
It  is  a  great  thing  to  do  plenty  of  work,  but  it 
is  a  greater  thing  to  do  that  work  in  all  the 
freshness  of  a  spiritual  vitality.  Ah !  we  know — 
if  ever  we  have  succeeded  in  opening  that  window 
which  looks  out  towards  the  distant  mountains 
of  Heaven,  there  where  the  breezes  blow  fresh 
across  the  sea,  there  where  the  sweet  odours  of 
Paradise  come  wafted  in  from  the  islands  of  the 
Blessed — we  know  the  strength  and  refreshment 
of  those  moments  spent  with  God.  If  Daniel  is 
to  brave  the  wrath  of  the  king,  and  play  the 
man,  he  feels  that  the  window  towards  Jerusalem 
must  be  kept  open  to  nerve  his  resolution  and 
brace  his  courage. 

People  lecture  from  time  to  time  on  some  of 
the  simplest  things  which  concern  life;  we  are 
thinking   this  morning   of  that  which,  simple  as 


THE    PRIEST  IN  HIS  PRIVATE  DEVOTIONS.       7 

it  is,  is  yet  the  very  necessity  of  the  Priestly  life. 
Before  I  go  further  niay  I  earnestly  beg  that  we 
all  use  every  effort  to  get  those  windows  open, 
and  open  regularly  ?  That  we  sedulously  set 
our  faces  against  those  tall  imposing  buildings — 
splendid,  artistic,  almost  necessary  some  would 
tell  us — if  they  shut  out  "the  ancient  lights;" 
those  ancient  lights  which  were  opened  when  we 
were  children  (perhaps  we  use  almost  the  same 
words  still  in  our  prayers),  where  the  sun  has 
come  in  before,  and  will  come  in  again,  without 
which  our  spiritual  life  will  become  pale  and 
thin  ?  Do  not  misunderstand  me.  Are  we  in 
danger  here,  as  in  so  many  other  quarters,  of  a 
Pseudo-ecclesiasticism  ?  Are  we  getting  to  be 
slaves  to  Offices,  beautiful  and  ancient,  it  may 
be,  but  difficult,  exacting,  and  just  wanting  in 
that  personal  fervour  and  simple  directness,  which 
our  private  Devotions  were  meant  to  supply  ?  If 
the  Church  of  England  puts  upon  us,  as  of  obli- 
gation,^  Matins    and  Evensong,   are  we   wise  to 

^  It  is  difficult  to  take  seriously  a  letter  recently  sent  to  a 
Church  newspaper,  in  which  the  writer  says,  "  We  are  under  a 


PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


add  to  our  ohligatioois  a  perfect  network  of  Offices 
which  are  more  than  our  spirit   can  bear?     Do 

canonical  obligation  to  say  the  ipsissima  verba  of  Missal  and 
Breviary.  Nor  is  there  to  be  found  anywhere  in  the  Prayer- 
book  or  other  formulary  a  single  word  to  release  us  from  this 
obligation,  or  to  lead  us  to  suppose  that  anything  else  has  been 
substituted  for  them.  The  Prayer-book  is  distinctly  called  the 
Book  of  Common  Prayer,"  etc.  We  are  reminded  of  a  dis- 
tinguished traveller,  who  interpreted  the  fact  that  he  was  pro- 
vided with  clean  linen  to  mean  that  he  was  to  put  on  one  shirt 
over  another,  simply  because  he  had  never  been  told  when  he 
put  on  clean  linen  first  to  divest  himself  of  that  which  had  been 
soiled.  We  imagine  that  the  compilers  of  our  Prayer-book, 
whether  they  were  right  or  wrong,  at  least  credited  their  descen- 
dants with  some  share  of  common  sense.  And  when  they  made 
provision  for  the  obligatory  recital  of  Matins  and  Evensong  by 
the  clergy,  privately  as  well  as  opeul}^  did  not  anticipate  that 
it  was  necessary  first  of  all  formally  to  stop  the  recitation  of 
the  old  offices,  as  a  matter  of  obligation,  when  they  had  ipso 
facto  provided  a  substitute.  It  may  interest  some  readers,  who 
are  not  merely  dea-iv  Sia(pvAarT6vTe5,  to  recall  the  words  of  Dr. 
Liddon  on  the  subject.  "A  complemental,  yet  most  useful 
practice  of  the  clergyman's  life  (if  time  allows)  is  the  obser- 
vance of  the  lesser  canonical  hours,  and  particularly  the  use  of 
the  service  for  Sext,  by  way  of  noonday  prayer.  Of  course  such 
a  practice  as  this  rests  on  very  different  grounds  from  that  of  the 
daily  office^  and  even  from  meditation,  of  which  the  former  is 
positively  and  the  latter  implicitly  enjoined  in  the  English 
formularies.  It  is  simply  an  act  of  the  individual  judgment, 
undertaken  with  a  view  to  edification.  Matins,  indeed,  and 
Lauds  are  very  fairly,  and  Vespers  very  fully,  represented  in 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PRIVATE  DEVOTIONS.       9 

not  we  want  to  be  alone  with  God  sometimes — 
to  talk  to  Him  without  the  formal  etiquette  of 
an  Office  ? 

Surely  it  is  not  all  a  protest  against  self- 
righteous  display,  when  Our  Blessed  Lord  bids 
us,  before  we  pray,  enter  into  our  closet!  We 
have  read  before  now  of  the  strange  coldness 
which  has  sprung  up  in  courts  between  princes 
and  their  parents,  if  they  only  see  them  in  the 
stiff  formalities  of  court  ceremonials :  a  life  built 
upon  Offices  leaves  something  to  be  desired,  and 
is  at  the  best  like  the  trim  Dutch  garden,  where 
one  longs  for  the  freely-blooming  freshness  of 
the  flowers,  and  the  fragrance  of  their  unstinted 
growth.  I  do  plead  earnestly  for  the  Priests' 
private  Prayers,  lest  they  should  be  crushed  out 
by  multiplied  work,  or  planted  out  by  Offices, 
or  talked  out  by  committees.  Depend  upon  it, 
dear  brethren,   that   in  many  a  physical   break - 

the  English  Prayer-book;  so  much  so  that  the  repetition  of 
these  offices  in  their  original  shape  might  appear  to  some  minds 
to  involve  an  act  of  disloyalty  towards  the  actual  services  of  the 
English  Church."—"  Clerical  Life  and  Work,"  by  Dr.  Liddon, 
p.  39 


PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


down  if  the  doctor  came  to  see  us,  he  would  say, 
"Above  all  things,  if  you  are  to  keep  in  health, 
you  must  have  your  meals  regularly,  and  take 
sufficient  time  over  them."  In  like  manner,  any 
physician  of  the  soul  would  say  to  you  this  Lent, 
"You  must  say  your  private  Prayers  with  regu- 
larity and  devotion,  and  give  plenty  of  time  to 
them.  Without  this  your  spiritual  life  will  faint 
and  fail;  your  face  will  not  shine;  your  people 
will  not  be  fed  with  their  proper  food;  you  will 
be  restless,  irritable,  discontented,  wearied,  with 
that  worst  form  of  spiritual  malady,  known  as 
prayerlessness,  which  is  the  very  insomnia  of 
the  soul." 


11. 

As  Priests  have  we  measured  sufficiently  the 
intense  power  of  Prayer  ?  There  are  other  forms 
of  organization,  other  forms  of  work,  but  Church 
work  ought  to  be  thus  differentiated — that  it  is 
saturated  with  Prayer.  The  congregation  to 
whom    the    parish    Priest    preaches    ought    first 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PRIVATE  DEVOTIONS.     Ii 

to  have  been  made  ready  for  the  good  seed  of 
the  Word  by  the  earnest  preparation  of  inter- 
cessory Prayer.  The  sermon  itself  should  be  not 
the  rambling  incoherency  of  a  barren  unprepared- 
ness,  but  carefully  built  up  with  Prayer.  Words 
in  their  Sunday^  dress,  not  only  the  best  words, 
but  sanctified  words.  The  parish  difficulties,  such 
as  we  encounter  in  visiting,  in  schools,  in  individual 
cases,  must  first  be  crumbled  down  with  Prayer. 
Before  the  hand-to-hand  assault,  let  there  be  the 
steady  bombardment  of  Prayer.  And  then  how 
often  the  difficulty  vanishes !  The  way  into  that 
impregnable  citadel,  as  we  thought  it,  has  been 
prepared,  and  the  victory  of  persuasion  has  been 
made  easy  by  Prayer.  If  only  we  resolved  to  be 
men  of  Prayer,  so  many  of  our  difficulties,  personal 
and  otherwise,  would  vanish.  Secularity,  which  is 
never  far  absent,  officialism,  an  irreverent  easiness, 
indolence, — all  these  things  would  become  impossible 
in  our  own  lives.  The  parish  Priest  would  shed 
around  him  an  atmosphere  of  spiritual  health,  and 
like  the  eucalyptus  tree  in  a  deadly,  fever-stricken 

*  "  La  Poesie,  c'est  la  verite  endimanchee." 


12  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

swamp,  would  sweeten  the  air  by  his  very 
presence. 

But  Lent  is  just  the  time  to  ask  ourselves  even 
closer-home  questions  than  these.  Lent  is  a  time 
when  our  souls  are  on  their  examination,  and 
when,  like  wise  examiners,  we  take  nothing  for 
granted. 

"  Have  I,  with  all  my  Eucharists,  my  OflSces,  my 
Prayers,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  learned  to  pray  ?  "  As 
the  train  of  life,  in  all  its  manifold  activities,  rests 
for  a  moment  thus  in  Lent,  does  this  wheel,  this 
master- wheel,  give  a  true  sound  when  we  tap  it  ? 
Have  I,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  learned  to  pray  ?  I 
suppose  there  is  no  trouble  so  common,  especially 
among  spiritual  men,  as  the  inability  to  pray ;  and 
there  are  few  things  of  their  kind  which  so  revenge 
themselves  upon  us  as  Prayer,  if  we  do  not  use  it 
aright.  For  as  there  are  few  joys  to  compare  with 
real  Prayer,  if  just  for  a  few  moments  we  have 
attained  to  it,  so  there  are  few  drudgeries  to  com- 
pare in  weariness  and  distastefulness,  to  Prayers 
said  because  we  must  say  them :  when  we  want 
to  be  doing  something  else,  and  simply  try  to  drag 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PRIVATE  DEVOTIONS.     13 


the  mind  after  us,   an   unwilling  and   impassive 
victim  to  an  irksome  sense  of  duty. 

Here  may  I  put  in  a  plea  at  once,  that  Prayer 
may  be  reckoned  more  as  a  part,  and  a  very  real 
part,  of  our  work  ?  We  can  see  the  popular  estimate 
of  Prayer  in  the  old  conception  of  a  Cathedral  body 
like  this.  Few  officials,  at  all  events,  in  old  days 
would  come  to  church  unless  they  were  paid  for  it. 
*'  The  Canon  in  Residence  "  only  came  in  at  the  last 
moment,  and  went  away  at  the  first  opportunity, 
when  his  month  of  residence  was  over,  just  putting 
in  an  official  minionuvi  of  service.  Every  one  thus, 
as  it  were,  giving  his  pound  of  flesh  and  no  more. 
We  still  feel  the  efiects  of  this  system.  People 
think,  if  they  don't  always  express  it,  as  they  see 
the  large  body  of  Cathedral  clergy,  "  How  can  you 
find  time  for  your  long  services  ?  I  should  like  to 
go  to  church  and  say  prayers  myself,  but  business 
must  be  done."  Well,  that  Priest  at  all  events  will 
not  do  much  good  who  does  not  recognize  Prayer 
as  his  business,  and  his  first  business.  The  church 
is  his  office,  his  seat  in  church  is  his  clerk's-desk. 
Prayer   and   spiritual   duties  are    the    very    first 


14  PRIESTLY  IDEALS, 

charge  upon  his  time.  And  however  much  a  lay- 
man may  be  forced  to  regard  such  things  as  a 
irapepyovj  to  the  Priest  certainly  they  are  the  very 
essential  ipyov,  which  he  is  set  to  fulfil.  Think 
of  our  Divine  Master  spending  whole  nights  in 
Prayer!  Think  of  the  exhortation  of  the  great 
St.  Paul:  "Pray  without  ceasing!"  Unless  we 
realize  this,  unless  we  recover  this  sense  of  the 
dignity,  the  absolute  essential  necessity  of  Prayer, 
we  shall  lapse  into  a  slough  of  committees,  and  the 
Church  will  become  what  the  old  Empire  used  to 
conceive  it  to  be,  an  eccentric  form  of  a  burial 
guild,  an  inconsequent  '^raipua,  always  trouble- 
some, probably  also  dangerous  to  the  State.  It 
is  sad  to  see  the  large  municipal  buildings  rising 
in  our  large  towns,  from  which  all  signs  of 
Christianity  are  excluded,  and  mythical  shapes 
raised  in  their  place,  where  the  architecture 
requires  some  form  of  ornamentation.  Take  care, 
lest  we  be  organizing  the  Church  and  leaving  out 
Prayer,  its  chiefest  ornament ! 

But   this  brings  us  to   the  very  heart   of   the 
question.      Without  doubt,  a  great   deal   of  that 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PRIVATE   DEVOTIONS.     15 

which  passes  for  Prayer  is  sheer  waste  of  time, 
simply  because  it  is  not  Prayer  at  all.  "We  cannot 
wonder  if  some  people  refuse  to  recognize  Prayer  as 
work,  when  they  only  know  it  as  the  feeble  patter- 
ing of  unreal  words.  It  would  do  us  all  good  to 
read,  during  this  Lent,  the  chapter  which  deals 
with  "Prayer"  in  Dr.  Liddon's  "Some  Elements 
of  Religion."^  "Let  us  examine,"  he  says,  "the 
idea  of  Prayer,  which  is  taken  for  granted  in  such 
language  as  the  foregoing.  Is  it  true  that  Prayer  is, 
as  is  assumed,  little  else  than  the  half-passive  play 
of  sentiment  which  flows  languidly  on  through  the 
minutes  or  hours  of  easy  reverie  ?  Let  those  who 
have  really  prayed  give  the  answer.  They  some- 
times, with  the  patriarch  Jacob,  describe  Prayer 
as  a  wrestling  together  with  an  Unseen  Power, 
which  may  last,  not  unfrequently,  in  an  earnest 
life,  late  into  the  night  hours,  or  even  to  the  break 
of  day.  Sometimes,  with  St.  Paul,  they  refer  to 
common  intercession  as  a  concerted  struggle. 
They  have,  when  praying,  their  eyes  fixed  on  the 
Great  Intercessor  in  Gethsemane;  upon  the  drops 

1  "Some  Elements  of  Eeligion,"  Lect.  V.  p.  171,  by  Dr.  Liddon. 


i6  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

of  blood  which  fall  to  the  ground  in  that  agony 
of  resignation  and  sacrifice.  Importunity  is  of 
the  essence  of  successful  Prayer.  Our  Lord's 
references  to  the  subject  especially  imply  this. 
The  Friend  who  is  at  rest  with  his  family  will 
rise  at  last  to  give  a  loaf  to  the  hungry  applicant. 
The  Unjust  Judge  yields  in  the  end  to  the  resist- 
less eagerness  to  the  widow's  cry.  Our  Lord's 
blessing  on  the  Syro-Phoenician  woman  is  the 
consecration  of  importunity  with  God.  And 
importunity  means,  not  dreaminess,  but  sustained 
work.  It  is  through  Prayer  especially  that  "the 
kingdom  of  Heaven  suffereth  violence,  and  the 
violent  take  it  by  force."  It  was  a  saying  of 
the  late  Bishop  Hamilton,  of  Salisbury,  that  "no 
man  was  likely  to  do  much  good  at  Prayer  who 
did  not  begin  by  looking  upon  it  in  the  light 
of  a  work,  to  be  prepared  for  and  persevered  in 
with  all  the  earnestness  which  we  bring  to  bear 
upon  subjects  which  are,  in  our  opinion,  at  once 
most  interesting  and  most  necessary."  He  shows 
to  us,  in  fact,  that  Prayer  is,  and  must  always 
be,   a   very   serious   task;    something   which   will 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PRIVATE  DEVOTIONS.     17 

make  us  tired;  something  which  must  have  an 
honourable  place,  and  not  merely  be  taken  up 
when  we  have  nothing  better  to  do.  "Prayer," 
says  Coleridge,  "  earnest  Prayer  is  the  most  severe 
of  all  mental  exercises." 

If  we  recognized  this,  it  would  help  us  to  feel 
more  its  dignity,  it  would  give  us  a  greater  sense 
of  its  importance;  but  also  it  would  lead  us  to 
take  more  trouble  about  it.  Why  are  we  so 
tormented  and  distracted  in  Prayer  ?  Why  does 
it  effect  so  little?  Why  do  we  feel  so  lifeless 
about  it  ?  Is  it  that  we  have  not  put  our  strength 
into  it  ?  Think  of  those  three  powers — the  intel- 
lect, the  affections,  and  the  will !  Surely  it  would 
be  one  very  real  help  to  earnest  Prayer  if  we 
prepared  for  it  more  than  we  do.  It  is  a  saying, 
attributed  to  a  well-known  master  of  the  spiritual 
life,  that  if  he  had  only  three  minutes  in  which 
to  pray,  he  would  devote  two  of  them  to  prepara- 
tion. The  Bishop  of  Truro  speaks  of  "  the  introit " 
to  Matins  and  Evensong,  as  well  as  the  introit 
to  the  altar.i     In  our  public  worship,  at  all  events, 

'  "  The  Parish  Priest  of  the  Town,"  p.  179,  by  Dr.  Gott. 

C 


i8  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

we  have  the  form  of  this  preparation  for  devotion, 
in  the  pause  and  silent  kneeling  which  is  made 
by  every  one  when  he  comes  into  the  church. 
Shall  we  not  find  that  here,  as  in  so  many  things, 
liKkov  y]/xiav  iravTog,  and  that  if  we  commenced 
with  an  earnest  preparation  in  our  private  Prayers, 
it  would  carry  us  through  all  the  difficulties  of 
weakness  and  distraction  ? 

Surely  one  great  help  would  be  to  put  ourselves 
at  once  in  the  presence  of  God ;  to  try  and  realize 
the  court  of  God,  what  it  is  and  what  it  means. 
To  put  before  us  God  the  Father  in  all  His  great- 
ness, God  the  Son  at  His  right  hand,  and  God 
the  Holy  Ghost;  to  try  and  realize,  if  it  may 
be,  the  awful  solemnity  of  that  Presence  before 
Whose  glory  angels  veil  their  faces  and  the 
Prophet  Isaiah  could  only  feel  his  own  unclean- 
ness.  To  remember  the  transcendent  business 
which  is  being  transacted  at  that  court ;  that  even 
while  we  speak  one  of  the  souls  that  are  ceaselessly 
leaving  the  body  is  coming  before  Him ;  that  He 
is  receiving,  even  then,  the  last  prayer  for  pardon, 
the  last  cry  of  despairj  the  agonies  of  the  tempted, 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PRIVATE  DEVOTIONS,     19 

the  strong  intercession  of  the  saints,  and  the  pure 
prayers  of  little  children.  If  Prayer  is  not  to  be 
an  empty  speaking  into  an  empty  desolation,  we 
should  realize  the  awful  meaning  of  that  phrase, 
*'  The  provocation  of  their  offering."  ^ 

I  have  not  ventured  to  touch  on  the  question  as 
to  how  far  religious  pictures  and  religious  emblems 
are  useful  as  a  help  to  Prayer.  I  should  imagine 
that  this  is  a  question  which  would  be  answered 
differently  by  different  individuals.  But  I  do 
think  that  we  want  to  fill  out,  to  people,  to  make 
definite,  the  Unseen  world  around  us.  Some  people 
are  best  helped  in  their  private  Prayers  in  this  way, 
by  an  absolute  blank  before  them ;  to  some  people, 
again,  nothing  is  so  helpful  as  the  open  sky  and 
the  green  grass  (I  am  speaking  now  of  helps  only, 
— helps  to  private  devotion),  and  I  suppose  we 
ought  to  watch  jealously  any  tendency  even  in  the 
use  of  the  Blessed  Sacrament  itself,  for  this  purpose, 
which  would  make  it  hard  to  realize  God  without 
some  outward  form  to  help  us.  We  want  more 
and  more  to  make  the  spiritual  the  more  real,  the 

1  Ezek.  XX.  28. 


PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


inward  stronger  than  the  outward ;  to  feel  that 
this  whole  world  around  us  is  a  great  sacrament, 
whose  inner  presence  is  God. 


III. 

If  we  can  rescue  Prayer  from  its  degradation 
and  elevate  it  to  its  proper  dignity,  we  have  again 
further  to  ask  ourselves,  '*  Do  I  assign  to  it  sufficient 
time  in  my  active  life,  in  my  busy  day  ? "  The 
times  of  Prayer  may  well  form  a  distinct  subject 
of  inquiry  in  our  Lenten  self-examination.  I  sup- 
pose, generally,  we  should  wish  that  our  day 
should  be  more  or  less  pervaded  with  Prayer ;  and 
to  this  end  we  might  well  set  up  certain  great 
fortresses,  as  it  were,  of  stated  times  and  acts  of 
Prayer,  and  for  the  rest  let  ejaculatory  Prayers  be 
a  vigilant  patrol  to  drive  back  the  spies  of  the 
enemy ;  and  so  draw  a  cordon  of  Prayer  round  the 
day.  Of  these  fortresses  of  Prayer,  I  suppose  it  is 
impossible  to  over-estimate  the  quiet  strength  of 
the  early  morning  devotions.  It  is  the  Nazareth 
before  the  ministry.     There  is  a  great  strength  in 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PRIVATE  DEVOTIONS.     21 


that  time  spent  before  Divine  Service,  before 
meeting  our  friends,  before  reading  letters,  before 
the  world  has  been  able  to  penetrate  within.  This 
is  no  slight  part  in  the  evil  of  late  rising,  that  it 
curtails  the  preparation  and  the  calm  strength  of 
the  morning  devotions,  and  sends  us  out  hurried 
and  unequipped,  with  a  sense  also  of  having  been 
already  worsted  in  an  encounter,  to  the  unknown 
battles  of  the  untried  day. 

The  other  great  fortress  will  be  set  up  in  the 
quiet  Prayer  at  night,  with  its  own  sense  of  sad- 
ness and  failure,  with  its  own  sense  of  rest  and 
forgiveness,  when  the  disciple  comes  to  Jesus  to  tell 
Him  what  he  has  done,  and  what  he  has  taught. 
Here,  again,  there  is  a  practical  strength  which  no 
one  would  lightly  forego.  It  is  the  death-bed  of  a 
day  with  its  own  confession  of  sin,  its  special  com- 
mendation of  the  soul  to  God. 

"  Abide  with  me  when  night  is  nigh. 
For  without  Thee  I  dare  not  die." 

Between  these  stated  times,  there  will  at  least 
be  the  halting-place  of  an  earnest  midday  devo- 
tion, and  it  is  possible  (as  St.  Ignatius  advises,  in 


22  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

overcoming  some  sin),  the  special  midday  examina- 
tion. And  might  we  not  make  more  use  of  ejacula- 
tory  Prayer  than  we  do  ?  Would  it  not  be  possible 
to  utilize  the  hour  of  dressing  with  its  obvious  sym- 
bolism, to  remind  us  of  Baptism  and  self-dedication  ? 
Would  it  not  be  possible  to  utilize  the  last  moments 
of  the  day  in  Psalms  and  verses  of  hymns  ;  just  as 
He,  our  Redeemer,  when  He  hung  upon  the  Cross, 
used  those  verses  of  the  Psalms  which  served  to 
give  expression  to  the  mysteries  of  that  awful 
hour?  Would  it  not  be  possible  to  let  the  clock 
each  time  that  it  strikes  call  us  to  Prayer ;  as  in 
the  beautiful  example  we  have  in  the  horology  of 
Bishop  Andrewes?  Thus  to  fall  back  upon  God 
will  help  us  in  many  a  trial,  and  when  temptation 
is  upon  us.  Our  Lord  and  Saviour  used  the  texts  of 
His  boyhood  to  repel  Satan ;  so  the  very  familiarity 
of  the  hymns  which  come  to  our  lips  will  bring  to 
hand  readily  the  weapon  which  we  need. 

I  have  left  to  the  last  one  form  of  private 
devotion,  about  which  I  would  gladly  be  allowed 
to  say  a  word;  I  mean  systematic  devotional 
Meditation.     There  are  few  religious  exercises  so 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PRIVATE  DEVOTIONS.     23 

helpful,  few  so  neglected,  even  by  the  Priest.  And 
yet,  those  who  use  it  know  how  extraordinarily 
valuable  and  blessed  an  aid  it  is.  More  than  other 
devotions,  it  helps  us  to  speak  to  God  in  our  own 
language,  and  tells  us  "  the  manner  of  the  God  of 
the  land."  It  opens  up  to  us  the  heart  of  Scrip- 
ture, and  shows  us  what  God's  Holy  Word  really 
is,  and  what  it  was  meant  to  say  to  our  soul.  And 
further,  for  those  who  have  to  preach,  it  supplies  a 
persuasiveness  which  nothing  else  gives.  When  we 
have  learned  to  meditate,  then  we  can  make  Holy 
Scripture  our  own,  and  bring  out  new  things  from 
our  treasury,  not  well-worn  platitudes  which  we 
have  adopted  without  thinking,  and  repeat  without 
meaning.  If  any  say  that  Meditation  is  difficult, 
that  is  the  very  measure  of  its  importance;  per- 
haps if  it  were  not  so  valuable,  it  would  not  be 
so  difficult.  If  any  say  he  has  no  time,  surely  it 
is  his  duty  to  make  time  to  wait  upon  God.  If 
any  say  he  has  no  natural  aptitude  thereto,  he 
has  no  audience  to  please  except  himself.  In 
one  sense.  Meditation  is  preaching  a  sermon  to 
one's   self;    in  another   sense,  it  is   talking  with 


24  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

God,  without  the  restraint  and  formalities  of 
a  stated  book  of  devotions.  I  would  earnestly 
plead  that  Meditation  should  be  a  part  of  our  daily 
routine,  with  perhaps  stated  exceptions  when,  on 
certain  days,  its  place  may  be  otherwise  occupied. 
I  would  plead  that  the  subject  of  Meditation  should 
generally  be  the  Holy  Scriptures.  I  would  suggest 
that  we  should  take  one  book  of  the  Bible  at  a 
time,  and  work  through  it,  taking  one  verse  or  one 
passage  a  day.  So  we  should  be  saved  from  the 
daily  difficulty  of  having  to  select ;  so  we  should 
be  saved  from  the  snare  of  favourite  texts ;  so  we 
should  find  that  all  Holy  Scripture  is  auriferous, 
and  that  every  text  will  give  up  its  gold,  if  we 
labour  long  enough  and  hard  enough.  So  our  text 
will  come  to  us  each  day  like  a  message  from  God. 
This  is  my  lesson  to-day  ;  this  is  what  God  has  to 
say  to  me  to-day:  these  are  my  day's  orders;  in 
this  I  shall  find  the  day's  watchword.  And  so, 
having  fixed  our  time  and  resolutely  shut  our  door, 
we  kneel  down  and  pray  to  the  Holy  Spirit;  we 
read  our  text,  and  think  it  out,  and  pray  over  it, 
and  resolve  over  it,  and  perhaps  formally  pick  the 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PRIVATE  DEVOTIONS.     25 

spiritual  bouquet,  which  is  to  last  us  through  the 
day.  The  following  may  perhaps  serve  as  ex- 
amples of  Meditation  on  verses  of  Holy  Scripture. 
The  first  on  a  difficult,  the  second  on  a  more 
obvious  text  taken  out  of  the  Gospels. 

Meditation  for  Holy  Saturday. 

"  Now  in  the  place  where  He  was  crucified  there  was  a  garden." 
—St.  John  xix.  41. 

I.  Contrast  the  wild  turmoil  of  Calvary  with  the 
peace  of  "  a  garden."  And  consider  the  first  Adam 
bringing  in  sin  into  the  world,  in  a  garden. 

And  now  the  Second  Adam,  Himself  sinless,  sub- 
mitting to  the  penalty  of  sin,  in  a  garden. 

"Wherewithal  a  man  sinneth,  by  the  same  also 
shall  he  be  jDunished  "  (Wisd.  xi.  16). 

II.  "  In  the  place  where  He  was  crucified."  By 
my  sins  wast  Thou  crucified,  0  Lord. 

Still  in  that  place  of  sin  there  is  a  garden,  planted 
with  good  seed.  Education,  Grace,  Good  Kesolutions 
of  Lent. 

This  garden  must  be  weeded,  cleansed,  made  soft 
and  open,  ready  for  the  Easter  Sun. 


26  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

"  Break  up  your  fallow  ground  "  (Hos.  x.  12). 

III.  "  In  the  place  where  He  was  crucified."  In 
the  hearts  of  my  people,  which  seem  so  hard,  there 
is  a  soft  place,  prepared  by  Grace,  sown  in  the  past 
by  good  influence. 

"  I  have  planted,  ApoUos  watered  "  (1  Cor.  iii.  6), 
and  God  will  give  the  increase. 

Calvary  shall  not  produce  despair.  I  will  still 
look  for  the  garden. 

IV.  "  In  the  place  where  He  was  crucified." 
Close  to  the  scene  of  my  own  death,  with  all  its 
terrors,  there  is  the  Paradise  of  God. 


"  Our  Master  hath  a  garden  which  fair  flowers  adorn, 
There  will  I  go  and  gather  both  at  eve  and  morn  ; 
Nought's  heard  therein  but  Angel  hymns  with  harp  and  lute, 
Loud  trumpets  and  bright  clarions,  and  the  gentle,  soothing 
flute. 


"  The  lily  white  that  bloometh  there  is  Purity, 
The  fragrant  violet  is  surnamed  Humility : 
Nought's  heard  therein,  etc. 

"  But  still  of  all  the  flowers,  the  fairest  and  the  best 
Is  Jesus  Christ  the  Lord  Himself,  His  Name  be  blest. 
Nought's  heard  therein,  etc. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PRIVATE  DEVOTIONS.       27 

"  O  Jesu,  my  chief  good  and  sole  felicity, 
Thy  little  garden  make  my  ready  heart  to  be ; 
So  may  I  once  hear  Angel  hymns  with  harp  and  lute, 
Loud  trumpets  and  bright  clarions,  and  the  gentle,  soothing 
flute." 

"God  Almighty  first  planted  a  garden.  And 
indeed,  it  is  the  purest  of  human  pleasures.  It  is 
the  greatest  refreshment  to  the  spirits  of  man ; 
without  which  buildings  and  palaces  are  but  gross 
handiworks."  ^ 

Meditation  for  the  Beginning  of  Lent. 

"  Then  was  Jesus  led  up  of  the  Spirit  into  the  wilderness,  to  be 
tempted  of  the  devil." — St.  Matt.  iv.  1. 

I.  "Then" — i.e.  after  His  Baptism,  after  the 
glorious  manifestation  from  Heaven.  In  the  full 
glow  of  God's  glory. 

Times  of  spiritual  blessing  may  be  followed  by 
times  of  distress  and  temptation. 

Look  back,  my  soul,  to  Confirmation,  past  Com- 
munions, past  Retreats,  past  Lents. 

"  Let  him  that  thinketh  he  standeth,  take  heed 
lest  he  faU  "  (1  Cor.  x.  12). 

'  Bacon's  "  Essays,"  xlvi. 


28  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


II.  "  Jesus."  The  sinless  God  is  tempted,  there- 
fore no  one  is  exempt. 

"  My  son,  if  thou  come  to  serve  the  Lord,  prepare 
thy  soul  for  temptation  "  (Ecclus.  ii.  1). 

The  Saviour  is  tempted ;  all  who  work  for  God 
must  expect  the  fiercer  trials. 

"Mighty  men  shall  be  mightily  tormented" 
(Wisd.  vi.  6). 

Distinguish,  however,  temptation  and  sin. 

And  remember,  "  God  is  faithful.  Who  will  not 
suffer  you  to  be  tempted  above  that  ye  are  able ; 
but  will  with  the  temptation  also  make  a  way  to 
escape,  that  ye  may  be  able  to  bear  it "  (1  Cor. 
X.  13). 

III.  "Led  up  of  the  Spirit."  Examine  com- 
mentaries, and  see  whether  He  was  led  by  His 
Spirit,  or  by  the  Holy  Spirit. 

Deciding  for  the  latter,  notice  "  Lead  us  not  into 
temptation,"  and,  "  My  brethren,  count  it  all  joy 
when  ye  fall  into  divers  temptations "  (St.  James 
i.  2).     "Ottou  ^'  aywvic  ^^a  Kai  (TTi(j)avot. 

IV.  "  Into  the  wilderness."  The  best  place  in 
which  to  meet  temptation. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PRIVATE  DEVOTIONS.       29 

Consider  the  wilderness  of  Lent,  and  of  self- 
denial. 

"  O  Lord,  Who  for  our  sake  didst  fast  forty  days 
and  forty  nights,"  etc.  Collect  for  first  Sunday  in 
Lent. 

V.  «  Of  the  Devil."  Consider  his  titles—"  Devil/' 
''Satan/'  "The  Serpent/'  "The  Father  of  Lies/ 
"  The  Roaring  Lion  " — and  from  the  titles  of  the 
enemy,  learn  the  nature  of  the  conflict. 

Resolution  :  "  Whensoever  I  call  upon  Thee,  then 
shall  mine  enemies  be  put  to  flight :  this  I  know ; 
for  God  is  on  my  side  "  (Ps.  Ivi.  9). 

Do  let  us  remember  that  spiritual  power  and 
spiritual  excellence  stand  before  everything  else. 
That  our  greatest  glory  and  joy  must  be  to  be 
ecclesiastics,  vigorous,  active,  spiritual  men.  If 
people  took  as  much  pains  in  making  themselves 
spiritually  proficient  as  they  do  in  making  them- 
selves intellectually  so,  the  Church  and  the  world 
would  be  very  different.  Men  ought  to  be  able  to 
feel  that  in  the  vicarages  and  clergy  houses  of  the 
land  there  lives  a  race  of  men  in  very  close  contact 


30  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


with  God,  ready  to  watch  the  questions  of  this 
world,  its  social  and  political  difficulties  on  the  side 
of  God,  ready  to  administer  and  skilfully  apply 
the  spiritual  remedies  so  carefully  placed  in  their 
hands — men  who  speak  what  they  know,  and 
testify  what  they  have  seen. 

Prayer  may  have  seemed  to  be  only  a  homely 
and  simple  subject;  we  share  its  power  with  the 
devout  layman,  with  the  pure  child.  But  never- 
theless, if  we  had  only  learned  to  pray,  it  would 
mean  an  incalculable  difference  in  our  own  lives 
and  the  lives  of  others.  Surely  Prayer  seems  to 
string  together  the  different  periods  of  our  life 
with  a  continuous  thread  as  nothing  else  can  do. 
It  may  be,  as  with  the  cottage  built  into  the 
walls  of  the  palace,  we  still  preserve  our  boyhood's 
prayers  in  the  selection  which  we  have  each  made 
for  ourselves.  They  are  the  sword  of  Goliath  to  us, 
wrapped  up  behind  the  ephod.  We  slew  with  it 
our  boyish  giant,  and  there  is  none  like  it  now. 
And  when  we  come  to  die,  we  lean  upon  the 
familiar  words  with  which  we  have  so  often  gone 
to  rest,  and  say  for  the  last  time,  ''Father,  into 
Thy  hands  I  commend  my  spirit." 


LECTURE  II. 

THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  CHURCH. 

Lo,  on  the  top  of  each  aerial  spire 

"What  seems  a  star  by  day,  so  high  and  bright 

It  quivers  from  afar,  in  golden  light. 

But  'tis  a  form  of  earth,  though  tinged  with  fire 

Celestial,  raised  in  other  days  to  tell 

How,  when  they  tired  of  prayer,  Apostles  fell." 

There  are  few  possessions  which  we  so  much 
cherish  as  our  parish  churches.  Wherever  we  go 
about  the  country,  we  know  that  it  is  the  rarest 
thing  in  the  world  to  find  a  church  in  which  there 
is  no  object  of  interest. 

More  often  we  find  buried  away,  in  quiet  nooks, 
bits  of  beauty,  records  of  self-denial,  touching 
memorials  of  former  piety ;  and  we  feel  what  our 
parish  churches  have  been  in  the  past,  and  what, 
please  God,  they  will  continue  to  be  to  our  people. 
And  here  in  London  we  know  what  a  power  the 


32  PRIESTLY  IDEALS, 

actual  church — the  material  church  of  bricks  and 
mortar — is  in  a  parish.  It  is  a  centre  of  unity  in 
the  dread  selfishness  which  is  so  characteristic  of  a 
great  city.  It  is  a  bit  of  beauty  in  a  land  of 
squalor,  a  centre  of  patriotism,  something  to  be 
proud  of,  something  to  work  for.  It  is  a  sympa- 
thetic voice  to  remind  men  of  the  universal  love  of 
God.  It  weeps  when  they  weep,  it  smiles  when 
they  rejoice,  it  weaves  itself  into  their  joys  and 
sorrows  until  it  becomes  a  part  of  their  lives.  The 
parish  Priest  must  feel  this  to  be  no  mean  privilege, 
no  unimportant  detail,  that  he  is  the  custodian  of 
the  parish  church ;  to  keep  it  in  repair,  to  enlarge 
it,  if  need  be ;  yes,  to  keep  it  clean — emphatically ; 
to  beautify  it — most  certainly.  The  parish  church 
should  represent  in  this  the  heavenly  city,  the 
new  Jerusalem,  coming  down  from  heaven,  as  a 
bride  adorned  for  her  husband.  We  need  to  feel 
more  than  we  do  the  educational  power,  the  ele- 
vating power  of  simple  beauty,  where  sin  is  every- 
where so  ugly  and  God  is  everywhere  so  beautiful, 
in  the  spirit  of  that  great  hymn  which,  after  ex- 
hausting all  themes  of  adoration  and  praise,  simply 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  CHURCH.  33 

expends  itself  in  this :  "  We  give  thanks  to  Thee 
for  Thy  great  glory ;  "  "  Gratias  agimus  Tibi  propter 
magnam  gloriam  Tuam." 

Only  let  us  remember  that  it  is  of  the  greatest 
importance  ever  to  bear  in  our  mind  that  we  are 
the  custodians,  the  trustees  of  the  house  of  God, 
which  belongs  to  the  parish.  We  ought  to  do  all 
we  can  to  respect  the  reasonable  sentiments  of  the 
people,  and  readily  repress  our  own  individual  likes 
and  dislikes. 

It  is  a  pitiful  thing  to  see  a  man  driving  away 
his  people,  or  alienating  their  affection  from  the 
parish  church,  because  he  dislikes  this  or  that 
arrangement,  harmless  in  itself ;  or  because  he  likes 
a  particular  form  of  ornament,  or  insists  on  having 
a  Litany-desk,  or  a  particular  chant,  or  a  particular 
kind  of  music. 

I  think  music  has  a  great  deal  to  answer  for  in 
the  present  day.  Our  organs  get  larger  and  larger, 
more  noisy  and  obtrusive,  filling  up  space  better 
employed  in  other  ways,  mutilating  chapels  and 
architectural  features,  and,  in  the  end,  sacrificing 
everything  to  artistic  display,  until,  in  the  enforced 


34  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


silence  of  the  congregation,  we  have  only  a  musical 
version  of  the  old  duet  between  the  clergyman  and 
the  clerk,  which,  in  the  early  days  of  the  Oxford 
Movement,  we  made  such  a  point  of  destroying. 
Most  certainly  congregational  worship  is  being  more 
and  more  invaded  by  the  musical  tyranny.  How 
few  churches  now  give  the  congregation  the  oppor- 
tunity of  joining  in  the  singing  of  the  Magnificat 
and  Nunc  Dimittis !  The  dull,  interminable,  and 
noisy  anthems  are  listened  to  in  mute  patience, 
or  accepted  as  a  musical  performance.  And  the 
worship  of  the  Altar  is  so  overlaid  with  noisy  and 
elaborate  settings  that  there  are  too  evident  tokens 
of  weariness  and  distraction.  No  !  As  the  parish 
Priest  learns  sternly  to  repress  his  own  aesthetic 
tastes,  or,  at  least,  govern  them  by  the  needs  of  his 
congregation,  so  let  him  not  hesitate  to  keep  his 
choir  in  due  subservience  to  edification. 

There  is,  of  course,  this  side  to  musical  worship, 
in  which  we  rejoice  to  recognize  it  as  the  offering 
of  the  most  perfect  vocal  and  musical  production 
that  can  be  realized,  to  the  King  of  Beauty.  That 
has  been  the  function  of  our  cathedrals  and  great 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  CHURCH.  35 

centres  of  musical  art ;  but  it  is  disastrous,  if  we 
are  going  to  allow  the  people  to  be  driven  out  of 
their  share  of  Divine  worship  by  a  musical 
performance  which  is  neither  beautiful  in  itself 
nor  devotional  and  helpful  to  the  worshippers.  It 
takes  us  a  long  time,  all  of  us,  to  realize  how  selfish 
we  are.  It  takes  a  long  discipline  and  some 
experience  to  be  sympathetic  with  those  who  are 
repelled  by  what  we  think  to  be  beautiful ;  who 
are  hindered  by  what  we  find  helpful ;  who  regard 
as  a  wicked  waste  of  money  what  we  think  to  be 
an  edifying  symbolism;  who  are  perplexed  and 
puzzled  by  our  fine  words  and  theological  terms, 
which  we  thought  to  be  so  helpful  and  precise. 

More  than  we  think,  more  than  we  care  to 
think,  the  people  and  their  devotions  are  the  real 
ornament  of  the  church.  Nothing  will  make  up 
for  it ;  we  can  be  nothing  else  than  miserable  if  we 
find  more  candles  than  communicants  in  our 
church,  a  big  choir  and  an  empty  nave,  our  own 
shibboleth  echoed  by  a  few  and  the  rest  puzzled 
and  unedified.  The  church  is  the  church  of  the 
people,  the  only  bit  of  beauty  which  some  of  them 


36  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

possess,  the  only  property  in  which  some  of  them 
have  a  share.  They  do  not  like  to  be  hustled  and 
puzzled  by  our  ever-changing  eclecticism,  or  by  the 
last  fashion  which  catches  the  restless  fancy  of  the 
parish  Priest.  Think  only  of  the  tender  memories 
which  lie  buried  in  those  walls,  of  the  many  broken 
hearts,  and  earnest  longings  and  heartfelt  resolu- 
tions which  have  wound  themselves  round  the 
fabric,  the  services,  the  hymn-book,  the  very  aspect 
of  the  building  !  "  A  tiresome  conservatism,"  do 
you  say?  Perhaps;  only  be  tender.  There  are 
roots  which  are  struck  down  into  the  earth  there, 
in  soil  which  you  deem  miserably  thin,  perhaps 
poisonous.  You  put  them  into  a  richer  soil,  you 
put  them  into  a  hot-house,  they  wither  and  die. 
They  were  growing  among  cinders  and  rubbish, 
but  there  was  a  soil  there,  and  a  grip  of  it  which 
in  our  folly  we  have  got  rid  of,  and  do  not  know 
what  to  put  in  its  place.  Old  customs,  old  beliefs, 
old  prejudices,  any  soil  in  which  roots  have  struck 
down, — they  may  have  to  be  cleaned,  to  be  re- 
plenished, reformed,  but,  depend  upon  it,  it  is  a 
bad  policy  to  cast  them  away  altogether.     In  this 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  CHURCH  37 


connection  the  following  statement  of  Cardinal 
Newman's  may  not  be  out  of  place :  ^  "  It  is  not 
difficult  to  determine  the  line  of  conduct  which  is 
to  be  observed  by  the  Christian  apologist  and 
missionary.  Believing  God's  hand  to  be  in  every 
system,  so  far  forth  as  it  is  true  (though  Scripture 
alone  is  the  depository  of  His  unadulterated  and 
complete  revelation),  he  will,  after  St.  Paul's 
manner,  seek  some  points  in  the  existing  super- 
stitions as  the  basis  of  his  own  instructions,  instead 
of  indiscriminately  condemning  and  discarding  the 
whole  assemblage  of  heathen  opinions  and  practices; 
and  he  will  address  his  hearers,  not  as  men  in  a 
state  of  actual  perdition,  but  as  being  in  imminent 
danger  of  '  the  wrath  to  come  '  because  they  are  in 
bondage  and  ignorance,  and  probably  under  God's 
displeasure,  that  is,  the  vast  majority  of  them  are 
so  in  fact,  but  not  necessarily  so,  from  the  very 
circumstance  of  their  being  heathen.  And  while 
he  strenuously  opposes  all  that  is  idolatrous, 
immoral,  and  profane  in  their  creed,  he  will  profess 
to  be  leading  them  on  to  perfection,  and  to  be 
1  Newman,  "  The  Arians  of  the  Fourth  Century,"  sect.  iii.  p.  85. 


38  PRIESTLY  IDEALS, 

recovering  and  purifying,  rather  than  reversing  the 
essential  principles  of  their  belief. 

"  A  number  of  corollaries  may  be  drawn  from  this 
view  of  the  relation  of  Christianity  to  Paganism 
by  way  of  solving  difficulties  which  often  perplex 
the  mind.  For  example,  we  thus  perceive  the 
utter  impropriety  of  ridicule  and  satire  as  a  means 
of  preparing  a  heathen  population  for  the  reception 
of  the  truth.  Of  course  it  is  right,  soberly  and 
temperately,  to  expose  the  absurdities  of  idol- 
worship  ;  but  sometimes  it  is  maintained  that  a 
writer,  such  as  the  infamous  Lucian,  who  scoffs  at 
an  established  religion  altogether,  is  the  suitable 
preparation  for  the  Christian  preacher, — as  if 
infidelity  were  a  middle  state  between  superstition 
and  truth.  This  view  derives  its  plausibility  from 
the  circumstance  that  in  drawing  out  systems  in 
writing,  to  erase  a  false  doctrine  is  the  first  step 
towards  inserting  the  true.  Accordingly  the  mind 
is  often  compared  to  a  tablet  or  paper :  a  state  of  it 
is  contemplated  of  absolute  freedom  from  all  pre- 
possessions and  likings  for  one  system  or  another, 
as  a  first  step  towards  arriving  at  the  truth ;  and 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  CHURCH.  39 


infidelity  represented  as  that  candid  and  dis- 
passionate frame  of  mind,  which  is  the  desideratum. 
For  instance,  at  the  present  day,  men  are  to  be 
found  of  high  religious  profession,  who,  to  the 
surprise  and  grief  of  sober  minds,  exult  in  the  over- 
throw just  now  of  religion  in  France,  as  if  an 
unbeliever  were  in  a  more  hopeful  state  than  a 
bigot  for  advancement  in  real  spiritual  knowledge. 
But,  in  truth,  the  mind  never  can  resemble  a  blank 
paper,  in  its  freedom  from  impressions  and  pre- 
judices. Infidelity  is  a  positive,  not  a  negative 
state,  it  is  a  state  of  profaneness,  pride,  and  selfish- 
ness ;  and  he  who  believes  a  little,  but  encompasses 
that  little  with  the  inventions  of  men,  is  undeniably 
in  a  better  condition  than  he  who  blots  out  from 
his  mind  both  the  human  inventions  and  that 
portion  of  truth  which  was  concealed  in  them." 

The  parish  church  is  like  a  rock  in  the  wilder- 
ness, out  of  which  gushes  the  fountain  of  life. 
There  it  streams  forth  in  sacramental  rivers  of 
grace,  and  where  it  flows  over,  there  is  the  green 
oasis  of  vicarage,  school,  institute,  penitentiary, 
houses  of  god-fearing  men  and  women,  whose  lives 


40  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

are  soothed  by  the  murmur  of  this  refreshing 
stream,  where  the  parish  Priest  follows  the  guid- 
ance of  the  Good  Shepherd  and  leads  them  forth 
in  the  green  pastures  beside  the  waters  of  comfort. 


I. 

Of  the  many  functions  which  the  Priest  has  to 
discharge  in  his  parish  church,  I  would  take  now 
only  just  a  few,  asking  you  to  remember  that  I 
do  not  put  these  forward  as  an  exhaustive 
enumeration,  but  certainly  as  leading  and  most 
important  offices  of  spiritual  duty,  which  he  has 
to  discharge  in  his  spiritual  house  of  business. 

And  first  of  all,  of  course,  I  must  put  his 
ministry  at  the  Altar.  This  is  his  most  character- 
istic function.  The  worship  of  the  church  is  no 
mere  independent  arrangement  which  might  have 
been  otherwise  ;  ^  it  is  ordained  by  Christ  Himself, 
to  make,  as  it  were,  the  worship  one  which  links 
Heaven  and  earth  together.     A  Sunday  without 

^  See  "  The  Ascension  and  Heavenly  Priesthood  of  our  Lord," 
Milligan,  p.  309. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  CHURCH.  41 

an  Eucharist  is  an  anomaly  which  ought  to  be 
impossible.  A  Priest  who  neglects  this  most 
important  part  of  his  ministry  must  surely  feel 
that  his  church  is  like  a  patch  of  darkness,  where 
the  long  line  of  Altars  flashes  up  the  great  memorial 
to  God.  As  one  looks  down  from  a  height  over 
the  far-stretching  plain,  or  over  the  city  from  the 
dome  above  us,  and  see  the  towers  and  spires  of 
the  churches  reaching  away  into  the  haze,  one 
realizes  what  a  mighty  intercession  it  might  be, 
when,  at  every  Altar,  at  least  on  Sunday,  the  Priest 
proclaims  the  Lord's  death  till  He  come.  The 
guides  at  the  top  of  this  cathedral  are  accustomed 
to  say  (I  know  not  with  what  truth)  that  wher- 
ever the  cupola  or  spire  is  painted  black,  that  is 
a  sign  that  the  pre-existing  church  on  that  spot 
was  destroyed  in  the  Great  Fire.  What  does  the 
recording  angel  think  of  those  dead  churches 
which  neglect  to  plead  the  Lord's  death  and  break 
this  linked  intercession  ?  On  the  other  hand,  now, 
it  is  not  unusual  to  find,  and  for  this  we  must 
thank  God,  even  many  churches  in  which  the 
Holy  Eucharist  is  offered  daily.      Only,  ought  we 


42  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

not  to  look  to  it  as  a  subject  of  self-examination 
in  Lent,  that  we  never  enterprise  sucli  a  tre- 
mendous thing  in  mere  obedience  to  a  fashion,  or 
because  it  is  "  the  right  thing  to  do "  ?  One  does 
so  dread  anything  like  playing  with  the  Blessed 
Sacrament,  or  thinking  that  one  can  put  on,  as  the 
saying  is,  a  Daily  Celebration  as  lightly  and  easily 
as  one  can  put  on  a  coloured  stole.  There  are 
difficulties,  yes,  and  there  are  profanations  con- 
nected with  it,  which  people  do  not  always  think 
of.  It  must  be — it  is — a  tremendous  strain  for  a 
Priest  to  be  obliged,  from  want  of  assistance,  to 
celebrate  every  day.  I  know  there  are  some  who 
think  it  only  the  right  and  the  duty  of  every 
Priest,  even  when  they  are  in  retreat,  so  to  cele- 
brate. It  is  a  tremendous  claim,  and  implies  a 
life  of  sustained  sanctity,  which  I  know  we  are 
all  bound  to  aim  at,  but  which  we  feel  it  is  un- 
speakably difficult  to  attain  to. 

It  is  idle  to  affect  to  ignore  that  a  mechanical 
devotion  has  before  now  crept  in  over  the  Priest- 
hood. It  survives  in  the  popular  idea  of  "  Sacerdo- 
talism."     There   is  nothing    in   that    term    itself 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS   CHURCH.  43 

which  should  or  would  frighten  people,  but  it 
represents  a  scar,  the  memory  of  a  past  burn  on 
the  public  conscience,  which  keeps  men  away  even 
from  warmth  and  light.  It  has  been  admirably 
put  before  us  in  a  recent  book  on  the  "  Ministerial 
Priesthood,"  that  "  a  Christian  priesthood  misappre- 
hends itself  which  can  be  content  to  find  the 
beginning  and  end  of  its  definition  or  meaning  in 
terms  only  of  what  is  outward  and  ceremonial,  or 
in  any  sacramental  service,  however  intelligent 
it  may  be,  or  reverent  in  itself,  which  does  not 
sweep  in  the  whole  heart,  and  action,  and  life. 
Leadership  in  Eucharist  worship,  truly  understood, 
involves  many  corollaries  of  spirit  and  life :  the 
bearing  of  the  people  on  the  heart  before  God ;  the 
earnest  efibrt  of  intercessory  entreaty ;  the  practi- 
cal translation  of  intercession  into  pastoral  life,  and 
anxiety,  and  pain."^  The  Daily  Celebration  and 
ministerial  easiness,  or  levity,  go  ill  together.  He 
who  celebrates  daily  has  mastered  the  difficulty 
which  puzzles  us,  of  wearing  aright  the  Eucharistic 
Vestments.     He  has   the  Helmet  of  salvation   on 

'  "Ministerial  Priesthood,"  by  Dr.  Moberly,  p.  261. 


44  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

his  head,  the  Amice  which  shields  him  from  the 
dazzling  and  distracting  blows  of  the  world,  from 
intellectual  perplexity  and  spiritual  temptations. 
He  is  covered  from  head  to  foot  with  the  Alb  of 
perfect  purity ;  he  has  learned  to  bring  into 
captivity  every  thought  to  the  obedience  of  Christ. 
He  is  girt  with  the  Girdle  of  absolute  temperance ; 
he  is  not  the  slave  of  any  habit,  however  innocent 
in  itself,  but  is  girded  in  tight  from  the  enjoyment 
of  any  creature,  which  is  used  for  its  own  sake 
apart  from  the  necessities  of  life.  He  bears  on  his 
neck  the  Stole  of  humility ;  he  is  the  servant  of 
God  and  the  servant  of  his  people ;  his  whole  life 
is  dedicated  to  the  service  of  humanity.  He  is 
covered  before  and  behind  with  the  Chasuble 
marked  with  the  cross.  He  is  wrapped  up  in  Christ. 
His  intercessions  are  joined  with  His.  His  active 
hands  are  pierced  with  His.  His  busy  feet  are 
pierced  with  His.  His  side  is  pierced  in  compas- 
sion with  His.  While  on  his  arm  hangs  the 
Maniple  of  sympathy,  to  weep  with  them  that 
weep,  to  know  something  of  the  Beatitude  of  the 
mourners,  and  to  minister  to  the  distressed.     Wher- 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  CHURCH.  45 

ever  we  go  in  the  ministry  we  are  surrounded 
with  the  symbolism  of  utter  surrender ;  but 
directly  we  brush  past  these  mute  reminders 
directly  we  become  official,  cold,  or  perfunctory, 
we  run  tremendous  risks.  Fashion,  "the  correct 
thing,"  orthodoxy,  a  stiff  rule,  ecclesiasticism,  have 
a  great  deal  to  answer  for;  our  rough,  illogical, 
haphazard  methods,  which  seem  to  be  so  irregular 
as  compared  with  the  firm  correctness  of  other 
standards,  at  least  witness  to  an  intense  abhor- 
rence of  unreality,  of  a  national  shrinking  from 
going  one  inch  further  outwardly  than  we  are 
prepared  to  go  inwardly,  and  an  intense  desire  to 
know  what  the  man  is  inside  the  Vestments.  And 
if  he  be  a  golden  Priest,  let  him  offer  in  a  vessel 
of  wood ;  if  he  be  a  wooden  Priest,  let  him  forbear 
to  offer  even  in  vessels  of  gold.  Surely  it  would 
be  a  region  in  which  we  should  meet  with  no 
opposition,  except  from  the  devil,  if  we  tried  to 
provide  ourselves,  this  Lent,  with  the  Eucharistic 
Vestments  of  a  Spiritual  Life. 


46  PRIESTLY  IDEALS, 

II. 

Another  function  connected  with  the  church 
is  the  recitation  of  the  Divine  Office,  known 
as  Matins  and  Evensong,  to  which  recitation  we 
are  bound  by  a  special  obligation.  Of  course 
the  revival  of  this  recitation  was  one  of  the  main 
features  of  the  Tractarian  Movement,  and  it  is 
probable  that  more  people  attended  these  Offices 
thirty  years  ago  than  do  now.  Possibly  this  has 
been  due  to  that  feminine  form  of  admiration 
which  imagines  that  love  for  a  particular  thing 
can  best  be  shown  by  depreciating  something  else. 
People  have  thought  it  a  good  way  of  elevating 
the  Holy  Eucharist  to  depreciate  Matins  and  Even- 
song. Partly,  again,  other  popular  Devotions  have 
taken  their  place.  Partly  the  Shortened  Service 
Act  has  so  robbed  them  of  their  structure  and 
their  beauty,  that  where  everything  has  been 
sacrificed  to  brevity,  people  have  ceased  to  feel 
their  attraction.  Partly,  no  doubt,  also  people 
have  grown  indifferent  in  a  general  wave  of  care- 
lessness  about  church-going.     But,  as   Priests,  do 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  CHURCH,  47 

let  US  recall  a  few  simj)le  considerations  which 
merit  our  attention.  First,  that  a  very  special 
blessing  attaches  to  our  recitation  of  an  Office 
which  is  laid  upon  us  under  the  obligation  of 
a  duty.  Secondly,  that  it  would  be  desirable 
that  we  should  get  out  of  the  way  of  a  per- 
functory parochial  recitation  of  these  Offices,  which 
is  symbolized  by  the  fact  that  none  of  the  clergy 
ever  attend  unless  they  are  obliged  to  do  so, 
in  the  person  of  the  one  who  is  responsible 
for  the  Office.  Surely,  just  as  in  well- worked 
cathedrals  every  effort  is  made  to  minimize  the 
idea  of  "  the  Canon  in  Residence,"  so  it  would  be 
a  good  thing  to  minimize  the  idea  of  the  Priest 
who  is  responsible  for  the  Office,  and  to  use  these 
times  as  far  as  possible  as  the  expression  of  the 
united  voice  of  those  who  minister  to  God  in  that 
parish.  Thirdly,  let  us  realize  that  this  is  part  of 
our  work,  as  real  and  as  true  as  the  performing 
of  some  definite  parochial  activity.  We,  in  our 
Cathedrals,  have  an  immense  obligation  laid  upon 
us,  to  show  people  that  we  are  not  wasting  time 
when  we  take  part  in  our  daily  elaborate  services, 


48  PRIESTLY  IDEALS, 

and  to  let  those  whose  duty  brings  them  there  feel 
that  the  clergy  go  to  church  not  only  when  they 
are  obliged,  and  that  their  main  duty  after  all  is 
not  merely  to  preach,  write  letters,  and  attend 
committees.  Fourthly,  let  us  realize  that  by  the 
custom  of  the  Church  of  England  the  laity  are 
invited  and  expected  to  assist  the  clergy  in  the 
recitation  of  the  Divine  Office — nothing  unprimi- 
tive  or  unusual,  as  a  study  of  Duchesne  will 
show.^  And  this  being  so,  it  is  loyal,  it  is  well 
to  emphasize  and  elaborate  it.  What  is  more 
miserable  in  life  than  a  man  who  is  unnatural; 
who,  being  born,  for  instance,  to  the  honest  and 
dignified  position  of  tradesman,  affects  to  despise 
trade,  and  to  imitate  the  fashions  and  indolence 
of  a  social  stage  above  him  ?  Or,  what  is  more 
provoking  than  for  a  man  who  is  born  an  English- 
man to  pose  as  a  Frenchman  ?  Or,  in  the  region 
of  art,  what  greater  mistake  has  been  made  by  an 
architect  than  treating  Classical  Architecture  as  if 
it  were  Gothic,  and  Gothic  as  if  it  were  Classical  ? 
Depend  upon  it,  it  is  an  immense  thing,  as 
^  Duchesne,  "  Origines  du  Culte  Chretien,"  chap.  xvi. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  CHURCH.  49 

Churchmen  also,  to  be  natural;  to  be  fond  of 
the  peculiarities  of  Anglicanism,  and  to  make  the 
best  of  them,  and  not  for  ever  to  be  trying  to 
make  them  something  else,  or  despise  them  because 
they  are  not  foreign. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  anywhere  a  form  of 
Divine  Office  more  dignified  and  more  serviceable 
than  Evensong.  Its  intense  dignity  and  beauty 
must  strike  any  one,  as  well  as  its  great  popularity 
in  the  best  sense.  And,  indeed,  largely  intellectual 
in  their  appeal  as  the  Divine  Offices  are,  and  full  of 
Holy  Scripture,  they  have  brought  up,  and  do  bring 
up,  a  sturdier  generation  of  Churchmen  than  those 
who  are  nourished  on  hymns  and  popular  devo- 
tions, sometimes  almost  puerile,  generally  very  light. 

And  this  being  so,  is  it  not  our  wisdom  to  recog- 
nize it  and  adorn  it  ?  If  Holy  Scripture  enters  so 
largely  into  our  Offices,  they  were  meant  to  be  in- 
structive. If  they  are  in  the  vernacular,  they  were 
meant  to  be  heard.  What  is  the  mystical  value  of 
mumbling  ?  What  is  the  precise  value  of  reading 
so  fast,  so  unintelligibly,  so  badly,  that  laymen 
shrink  away  ashamed  and  pained  ?     This  surely  is 


50  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

an  affectation  of  what  we  are  not,  and  about  as 
dignified  as  the  assuming  of  a  limping  gait,  or  a 
lisping  tongue,  when  God  has  made  us  healthy  and 
whole.  No!  the  recitation  of  the  Divine  Office 
should  be  performed  with  as  much  care  as  the 
celebration  of  the  Holy  Mysteries  themselves.  We 
cannot  run  in  and  out  before  God,  and  say,  "  It  is 
only  Matins,  it  does  not  matter.  We  must  get 
through  it  somehow,  we  must  do  it  quickly."  No  ! 
God  is  there,  and  when  we  have  done  our  best  we 
shall  have  done  it  very  badly.  While  to  have  done 
our  best  in  the  Divine  Office  is  a  reason  for  being 
able  to  do  our  best  in  the  service  of  the  Holy  Altar. 
Might  we  not  this  Lent  take  the  Divine  Office 
in  hand,  and  try  to  offer  it  more  worthily  to  God  ? 
What  a  grand  thing  is  the  recitation  of  the 
Psalter  alone !  Think  of  that  great  choir  before 
whom  we  say  it;  the  saints  who  have  enriched 
every  cadence,  and  fulfilled  every  turn  of  those 
Psalms  with  the  melody  of  their  lives!  What  a 
companion  we  have  in  the  Daily  Office ;  how  it  has 
wound  itself  round  our  life,  and  has  spoken  to  us 
at  every  turn  ;  childhood,  school,  college-life,  our 
daily  vicissitudes,  are  all  in  it !     It  is  like  the  sea, 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  CHURCH. 


it  is  like  the  mountains,  always  changing,  yet 
always  the  same.  We  do  not  need  proper  lessons, 
they  are  always  appropriate.  King  Charles  is 
comforted  before  his  martyrdom  by  the  lesson  chosen 
as  if  for  his  especial  comfort.  The  Bishops  on  their 
release  from  the  Tower  are  cheered  by  the  Lesson 
which  told  of  St.  Peter's  deliverance  from  prison.  It 
is  a  sturdy,  vigorous  life,  after  all,  which  has  grown 
up,  fed  with  the  Daily  Office  full  of  Scripture — and 
of  Scripture  shaded  and  painted  and  framed  in  the 
exquisite  devotional  setting  which  gives  it  its  true 
value.  Here  at  least  we  shall  make  use  of  our 
church,  and  ask  our  people  to  use  it  with  us, 
and  thank  God  for  a  national  use  which  has 
taught  our  people  to  love  their  Bible,  and  has 
given  them  withal  a  masculine  spiritual  sense. 

III. 

In  the  few  moments  I  have  left,  I  would  speak 
of  the  church  as  a  place  of  instruction,  and  that 
only  in  one  department,  the  instruction  as  given  in 
sermons.  It  is  a  question  whether  we  are  giving 
sermons  anything  like  their  proper  position  in  our 


52  PRIESTLY  IDEALS, 

work  and  thoughts.  In  the  great  reaction  from 
the  time  when  preaching  obscured  Sacraments, 
there  seemed  to  be  a  deliberate  attempt  to  belittle 
sermons.  It  was  another  example  of  what  I  spoke 
of  just  now :  people  showed  their  appreciation  of 
Sacraments  by  offering  indignity  to  sermons.  We 
remember  the  absolute  fear  of  preaching  without  a 
book,  pulpits  cut  down,  or  even  abolished,  the 
restrained,  unimpassioned  reading  of  a  doctrinal 
treatise,  generally  on  the  subject  of  Baptismal 
Regeneration.  But  English  people  certainly  be- 
lieved in  sermons,  and  surely  it  was  the  height  of 
folly  to  drive  away  a  class  which  was  ready  to  be 
taught,  and  to  break  down  what  was  in  reality  a 
great  opportunity.  Now,  of  course,  there  are  signs 
that  this  belief,  imperfect  and  out  of  proportion  as 
it  was,  is  dying  out.  The  rising  generation  as  a 
rule  dislikes  sermons.  And  it  is  not  a  matter  which 
we  can  view  with  unmixed  satisfaction,  if  our 
class-room  is  empty,  and  an  uninstructed  youth  is 
growing  up,  more  especially  as  they  come  to  us  from 
schools  where  dogmatic  truth  is  wholly  ignored, 
and  even  a  proper  use  of  the  Bible  is  neglected. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  CHURCH  53 

Is  there  not  a  growing  carelessness  and  even 
flippancy  about  sermons  ?  Their  numbers,  alas ! 
do  not  decrease,  but  our  people  are  being  fed  on 
terribly  thin  stuff,  and  they  resent  it.  And  then 
comes  the  terrible  temptation  to  do  something  to 
make  them  stop  and  listen,  which  is  unworthy, — the 
comic  sermon,  the  attractive  sermon,  the  sermon  on 
subjects  of  the  day.  I  myself  have  seen  churches 
placarded  as  if  a  variety  entertainment  were  to 
take  place  inside.  "  Courtship,"  "  Wives,"  "■  Musings 
by  the  side  of  a  glacier,"  "  The  biggest  banquet  on 
record,"  and  titles  of  this  kind,  are  advertised  as 
subjects  of  sermons.  Is  it  not  degrading  ?  Is  it 
not  pandering  to  the  lowest  tastes  ?  Is  it  not  an 
offence  against  beauty  ?  Is  it  not  dangerous  to 
the  preacher  himself?  The  new  calendar,  again, 
landing  us  in  Sanitation  Sunday,  with  the  general 
subject  of  drainage — is  it  not  lowering  the  Chris- 
tian pulpit  ?  Does  it  not  say,  "  The  Gospel  is  worn 
out,  and  I  must  do  something  to  attract  and  keep 
a  congregation  together  somehow  "  ?  Or,  take  once 
more  the  prevailing  fashion  of  inviting  to  church, 
men  by  themselves,  women  by  themselves,  children 


54  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


by  themselves,  to  a  special  service.    Of  course  there 
are  occasions  when  this  may  be  desirable,  but  very 
often  it  is  only  a  kind  of  flattery  designed  to  make 
people   believe   that   we   have  got  a  message  of 
peculiar  importance  to  deliver  to  them,  which  turns 
out  after  all  to  be   something  which  might  have 
been  said  with  equal  propriety  to  the  occupants  of 
the   old   family   pew.      It   was   said   in   a  recent 
sermon  ^  that  there  are  four  qualifications  for  a  good 
preacher:  (1)  Reverence;  (2)  Study;    (3)  Dogma; 
(4)  Comprehensiveness.     And  these  are  heads   of 
examination  under  which  we  might  well  bring  our 
sermons.     I£  we  think  of  reverence,  it  would  be 
something  if  we   always   knelt  down   before  we 
prepared,   and    always    before   we    delivered    our 
sermons,   and   said,  "  Veni  Creator r     We   should 
hardly  then  invite  the  Holy  Spirit  to  help  us  to 
make  jokes,  or  talk  about  glaciers,  or  say  smart 
and  profane  things  about  the  Saints,  just  to  show 
we  are  not  afraid.     We  should  speak  then  as  in  a 
Presence,  and  feel  that  a  sermon  is  a  speech  with 

1  "  Four  Qualifications  for  a  Good  Preacher,"  a  Sermon  by  Dr. 
Luckock,  Deau  of  Lichfield,  1887. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  CHURCH.  55 

a  nimhv^  round  it,  just  as  the  Bible  is  a  book  with 
a  nimbus  round  it,  and  the  church  is  a  building 
with  a  nimbus  round  it,  and  the  Priest,  if  you  like, 
a  man  with  a  nimbus  round  him.  These  flippant 
attractive  sermons  not  only,  in  some  instances,  do 
harm  to  the  preacher,  but  they  do  harm  to  the 
congregation  also.  Accustomed  to  strong  stimu- 
lants like  this,  they  will  have  nothing  without 
them,  and  the  old  Gospel  sounds  flat  to  those  who 
want  more  jokes,  more  pictures  described,  more 
politics,  more  questions  of  the  day.  Smartness, 
profanity,  irreverence — so  it  gets  piled  on  and  on, 
as  the  old  stimulants  fail,  and  something  stronger 
is  demanded,  under  threat  of  an  empty  church. 
We  see  the  great  Preacher  of  righteousness  reduced 
to  a  congregation  of  twelve  on  one  occasion,  and 
they  wavering ;  but  there  was  no  attempt  to 
minimize  truth  in  consequence. 

And  then  I  suppose,  in  just  the  opposite  direction, 
a  preacher  who  has  driven  people  away  by  his 
dullness  and  emptiness,  ought  to  be  severely 
grieved  with  himself.  It  is  not  a  mark  of  per- 
fection to  have  an  empty  church.     Study  of  books, 


56  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

of  men,  of  history,  of  self,  should  always  give  him 
something  to  say.  And  if  a  man  has  something  to 
say,  people  will  stop  to  listen  to  it.  We  want  to 
get  out  of  that  hopeless  way  of  droning  out  a  few 
platitudes  which  have  been  said  hundreds  of  times 
before,  something  to  take  up  time,  or  suggesting 
the  obvious  impression  that  a  duty  has  been  forced 
upon  us  which  we  dislike,  despise,  and  refuse. 
Every  Priest  who  is  in  earnest  can  preach  ;  if  we 
have  something  to  say  we  shall  be  able  to  say  it. 
We  ought  surely  to  take  more  pains,  not  to  write 
an  essay,  but  to  give  our  people,  whom  we  know 
as  individuals,  a  message.  Indolence,  neglected 
prayer,  vanity,  self-indulgence,  contented  ignorance, 
neglected  visiting,  neglected  schools,  all  leave  their 
marks  upon  our  sermons.  It  is  the  greatest  com- 
pliment which  a  preacher  can  receive,  not  that  he 
has  preached  an  eloquent  sermon,  but  that  he  has 
preached  a  helpful  one.  My  old  Vicar,  the  late 
Dean  Butler,  used  to  say  we  ought  to  ask 
ourselves,  "Has  my  sermon  led  anybody  to  do 
anything  ? " — to  think  worse  of  himself  than  when 
he   came    to    church  ?      Has    it    taught  anybody 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  CHURCH.  57 

anything  ?  These  are  the  sort  of  things  to  aim  at 
in  a  sermon :  not,  "  How  am  I  to  write  a  good  essay- 
to  satisfy  myself?"  but  "What  will  that  trades- 
man whom  I  know  get  out  of  this  ?  What  will 
this  teach  that  difficult  Churchman?  Will  this 
solve  that  young  man's  perplexities  ?  Is  this  the 
sort  of  thing  which  will  help  my  people  to  face 
the  infamy  of  the  streets,  and  the  temptations  of 
life  ? "  It  is  better  to  speak  from  the  heart,  and 
what  we  feel,  even  if  artistically  or  to  a  scholarly 
mind  we  are  out  of  proportion,  than  to  say,  "  There 
is  this  to  be  said  on  this  side,  and  this  on  that ;  the 
truth  lies  somewhere  between,  and  is  of  very  little 
value  when  you  find  it."  We  want  study.  Study 
in  the  two  books,  the  book  of  experience  and  the 
book  of  revelation.  And  we  want  dogma.  I 
cannot  sum  up  this  better  than  in  these  words, 
which  I  once  read  in  a  review,  "The  Gospel  is 
good  news,  not  good  advice."  We  have  news, 
unspeakably  good  news,  to  deliver;  we  have  to 
preach  to  men  the  way  of  salvation ;  and  the  way 
of  salvation,  however  unpopular  it  may  be  to  say 
so,  is  very  clearly  marked,  and  sharply  separated 


S8  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

off  from  many  tracts  of  very  pleasing  error.  And 
we  shall  want  comprehensiveness,  "  the  proportion 
of  faith."  Surely  this  does  need  insisting  on.  At 
one  time  Baptismal  Regeneration,  as  we  have  seen, 
used  to  be  preached  ad  nauseam.  At  another 
time,  the  Atonement.  Now  we  so  often  hear  the 
Holy  Sacrament  of  the  Altar  dragged  in,  in  season 
and  out  of  season,  that  we  find  ourselves  looking 
out  for  it  as  a  milestone  on  the  way.  It  is  terribly 
easy  to  make  truth  stale,  to  press  it  out  of  pro- 
portion, and  to  build  superstructures  without 
foundations,  and  to  spend  strength  on  ornamenta- 
tion which  was  needed  for  the  foundations.  The 
whole  history  of  schism  is  the  history  of  ill-pro- 
portioned truth,  which  has  broken  off  at  the  point 
of  deformity. 

If  our  churches  are  of  such  value,  viewed  in  only 
three  departments  of  their  manifold  uses,  let  us 
labour  more  and  more  to  make  them  centres  of 
life ;  houses  of  God  in  very  truth ;  sanctuaries  to 
which  the  sinner  can  flee  and  escape ;  schools  of 
sound  doctrine,  the  grave  Gospel  preached  by 
grave  clergy  to  meet  the  grave  mysteries  of  life. 


LECTURE  III. 

THE   PRIEST   IN   HIS  DEALINGS  WITH  PENITENTS. 

"  Despondency  is  but  another  form  of  self-conceit.    Despondency 
is  self-confidence  whicli  has  failed." 

No  one  can  have  been  long  in  the  ministry,  if  at 
all  events  he  has  made  full  proof  of  it,  without 
finding  out  how  largely  he  is  occupied  in  dealing 
with  sin.  So  much  so,  that  if  a  man  finds,  or 
begins  to  think,  that  his  time  and  work  are  devoted 
only  or  chiefly  to  presiding  at  committees,  organiz- 
ing entertainments,  improving  sanitary  conditions, 
and  in  political  agitation,  one  is  almost  inclined 
to  think  there  must  be  something  wrong. 

The  sheep  are  safely  curled  up  in  the  fold,  he  re- 
gards their  number  with  pride,  their  general  fleecy 
whiteness  with  satisfaction ;  and  he  knows  nothing 
of  the  thief  which  comes  not  but  for  to  steal  and  to 
kill  and  to  destroy.     If  a  doctor  in  the  parish  were 


6o  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

to  spend  all  his  time  in  organizing  missionary 
meetings,  or  getting  up  concerts,  his  patients  would 
soon  seek  some  one  else,  or,  failing  that,  die.  And 
so  if  we  Priests  are  out  of  touch  with  individual 
work,  if  we  know  nothing  of  the  soul's  needs  among 
our  people;  perhaps  unconsciously  to  us  they  are 
seeking  other  remedies,  other  doctors,  strange 
unhealthy  sentimental  quackeries,  while  we  keep 
the  Church  medicine-chest  shut  up,  and  do  not 
know  how  to  use  the  Church's  instruments.  And 
our  sheep  are  getting  their  remedies  elsewhere 
while  we  are  sending  up  our  parochial  statistics  to 
"The  Church's  Year-book,"  or  they  are  dying  of 
some  hidden  disease,  while  we  complacently  say, 
"  What  a  beautiful  flock  we  have  under  our  hand  1 " 
We  are  bound  to  assume  the  existence  of  sin  and 
the  need  of  definite  penitence  in  our  flock ;  not, 
alas !  in  those  open  and  notorious  cases  which  we 
fence  round  with  a  wall  of  propriety,  and  leave  as 
altogether  beyond  us  and  impossible;  but  also 
among  our  own  most  cherished  sheep,  our  choir, 
our  communicants,  our  respectable  Churchpeople, 
our  schools. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  DEALINGS  WITH  PENITENTS.  6i 

Always  remember — never  let  us  forget  it — 
that  congregation  of  respectable  people  whose 
religious  sympathies  were  so  outraged,  and  their 
sense  of  the  intense  obligation  of  the  moral 
law  so  accentuated ;  who  wished  to  make  it  a 
test  of  our  blessed  Lord's  conduct,  whether  or  not 
He  sympathized  with  them  in  suppressing  so  great 
an  outrage.  There  they  stand  round  the  poor 
woman  taken  in  adultery,  indignant,  triumphant, 
with  a  case  with  a  definite  issue,  from  which  He 
could  not  escape.  "  Moses  in  the  Law  commanded 
us,  that  such  should  be  stoned :  but  what  sayest 
Thou  ?  "  ^  And  in  a  few  moments  the  whole  con- 
gregation has  melted  awa}^,  stung  by  a  shaft  from 
the  quiver  of  truth :  "  He  that  is  without  sin 
among  you "  (he  that  is  free  in  this  matter),  "  let 
him  first  cast  a  stone  at  her."  ^ 


L 

And  this  brings  me  to  the  first  thing  I  wished 
to  say.     We  must  make  penitents.     Every  man  is 

^  St,  John  viii.  5.  "  St.  John  viii.  7. 


62  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

a  sinner,  but  not  every  man  is  a  penitent.  Some 
are  leading  two  lives,  quite  distinct  the  one  from 
the  other ;  it  is  "  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  "  over 
again.  And  when  the  first  man  is  in  church,  or 
talking  to  his  Rector,  he  does  not  think  anything 
about  his  second  self,  which  is  lustful,  intemperate, 
angry,  dishonest,  on  other  days  and  in  other  com- 
pany. And  he  has  persuaded  himself  that  every- 
body has  something  amiss  with  him ;  that  virtue  is 
like  a  highly  refined  spirit,  which  needs  a  little 
adulteration  with  sin  if  it  is  to  stand  the  climate  of 
the  world.  He  poses  in  society  as  a  man  who  is 
not  too  strict,  as  a  man  who  knows  something  of 
the  world,  as  one,  in  short,  who  makes  no  profes- 
sions. There  they  sit  before  you  on  Sunday  as 
morally  dense  as  any  King  David  when  Nathan  is 
speaking  his  parable  in  the  pulpit.  We  must  make 
penitents ;  that  is,  we  must  speak  plainly  from  time 
to  time  about  sin  and  the  need  of  repentance.  We 
must  tell  people  what  sin  really  is,  and  what  peni- 
tence really  is,  and  that  a  great  deal  more  is  re- 
quired from  the  followers  of  the  Crucified  than  was 
required  from  the  better  heathen  and  from  the  Jews, 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  DEALINGS  WITH  PENITENTS.  63 

Do  we  have  plain  speaking  enough  from  the 
pulpit  ?  The  only  plain  speaking  that  many  of 
our  parishioners  get  is  on  the  side  of  Satan,  in 
novels  and  publications  which  they  read  without 
a  blush ;  while  they  are  shocked  at  anything  which 
is  outside  the  limits  of  commonplace  in  our  utter- 
ances. It  is  the  shallowest  criticism  which  com- 
plains of  what  some  people  are  pleased  to  call  the 
indelicacy  of  the  Bible.  There,  certain  sins  and 
the  permanent  attitude  of  God  towards  those  sins, 
together  with  certain  mysteries  of  life,  are  treated 
of  in  a  solemn  and  serious  way,  and  the  knowledge 
of  what  is  wrong  and  the  knowledge  of  those 
mysteries  of  life  which  so  many  are  now  saying- 
ought  to  be  imparted  to  the  young,  are  there  set 
forth  in  a  natural,  solemn,  and  yet  veiled  manner. 

Still,  I  return  to  what  I  said  at  first.  Do  we 
speak  seriously  enough  to  our  people  about  sin  and 
sinfulness  ?  It  is  difficult  and  it  is  dangerous ;  and 
surely  great  care  must  be  exercised;  but  still  it 
should  be  done.  Why  should  there  not  be  more 
consultations  among  the  Priests  of  a  parish  as  to 
sermons  ?     And  if  something  has  to  be  said,  let  it 


64  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

not  be  said  by  the  youngest  and  most  inexperienced 
and  the  least  responsible  member  of  the  staff,  but 
by  him  who  is  best  qualified  by  experience  and 
capabilities  to  speak,  and  who  will  do  so  as  the 
representative  of  all.  How  often  it  happens  that 
things  are  rushed,  and  harm  is  done  because  a 
young  man,  straight  from  his  Ordination,  without 
consultation,  and  without  knowing  the  people,  in- 
sists on  blurting  out  some  difficult  piece  of  advice 
on  some  delicate  doctrinal  point,  and  thinks  that  he 
is  thereby  declaring  "  the  whole  counsel  of  God."  ^ 

Most  certainly  refined  ladies  and  children  have 
to  be  respected ;  and  therefore  I  would  venture  to 
suggest  that  when  we  preach  about  impurity,  e.g.  as 
we  ought  to  do  from  time  to  time,  it  should  be  in 
Lent  or  at  other  times  when  special  notice  can  be 
given,  so  that  those  who  do  not  want  to  come  may 
be  able  to  withdraw  themselves.  Lust,  drunken- 
ness, untruthfulness,  dishonesty,  and  other  common 
sins,  should  be  preached  about  earnestly  and 
strongly,  at  least  once  a  year,  by  that  member  of 
the  staff  who  is  best  able  to  do  it.     It  was  the  old 

1  Acts  XX.  27. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  DEALINGS  WITH  PENITENTS.  65 

Tractarian  rule  to  preach  penitence  in  the  con- 
fident belief  that  repentance  and  confession  of  sins 
would  naturally  follow.  In  our  sestheticism,  our 
sermons  on  subjects  of  the  day,  our  love  of  change, 
there  is  a  terrible  danger  of  forgetting  %in ;  and  it 
is  one  of  the  first  duties  of  the  parish  Priest  to 
put  this  before  his  people. 


11. 

If  it  is  his  duty  to  make  penitents,  to  rouse  this 
feeling  in  the  hearts  of  a  too  self-satisfied  genera- 
tion, it  is  his  duty  also  to  find  out  penitents.  I 
mean,  he  will  not  content  himself  with  firing  into 
the  air ;  he  wiU  follow  it  up  ;  he  must  get  at  close 
quarters  with  his  people.  And  how  very  much 
depends  on  this  1  Is  there  not  a  danger  in  that 
diocesan  official  spirit  that  people  will  begin  to 
think  you  have  no  heart  and  no  human  sym- 
pathies ?  The  man  who  looks  from  the  height 
of  an  inefiable  superiority  on  a  poor  struggling 
schoolboy  will  not  encourage  him  to  ask  how 
he  can  get  rid  of  that   evil   which   has   not  yet 

F 


66  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

become  chronic,  which  has  fastened  on  him 
from  evil  surroundings.  There  are  some  people 
we  could  not  confide  in ;  they  seem  to  repel  us. 
That  man  who  magnificently  reaches  the  poor 
tempted  artisan  through  a  network  of  organiza- 
tion, and  touches  him  with  the  finger-tips  of  a 
district  visitor,  perhaps  not  over  wise,  perhaps 
gossiping  and  fussy,  must  not  expect  to  get  at 
the  depth  of  a  man's  heart.  The  man  who  only 
speaks  to  his  people  in  herds  in  a  parish-room  or 
schoolroom  must  not  expect  Nicodemus  to  come 
and  talk  to  him  about  his  soul,  or  Onesimus 
to  tell  him  that  he  is  a  runaway  slave,  who 
wants  to  get  back  to  his  Master  and  atone  for  his 
fault  as  a  Christian  to  a  Christian.  Penitents 
hide  away  in  the  garrets  in  the  shape  of  men  who 
have  long  shunned  the  very  sight  of  a  Priest. 
There  is  a  reason  for  it.  Penitents  lurk  away  in 
that  class  of  difficult  people  whom  we  have  lumped 
together  in  a  broad  generalization  of  uniform 
hopelessness  as  "  publicans  and  sinners."  Penitents 
are  to  be  found  in  the  Confirmation  candidates, 
who   are  not   a   class   to    be   drilled   to  pass   an 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  DEALINGS  WITH  PENITENTS.  67 

examination,  but  individual  souls  to  be  saved.  The 
young  man  who  tells  you  he  does  not  believe  in 
a  God  does  not  really  need  a  series  of  "  Bampton 
Lectures,"  but  probably  only  wants  to  make  his 
Confession.  The  man  whom  you  press  and  worry 
to  fall  in  with  the  ordinary  routine  of  penitence 
shrinks  back ;  you  have  frightened  him.  His  soul 
is  tender ;  sin  to  him  is  a  delicate  and  awful 
subject ;  he  does  not  know  you  are  the  sort  of 
doctor  he  cares  to  trust.  It  is  one  thing  to  preach 
penitence ;  it  is  another  thing  to  have  that  subtle 
diagnosis  of  character,  that  wisdom  and  practical 
prudence,  which  knows  where  to  look  for  the  sin- 
laden  sufferer,  and  how  best  to  cure  the  acuteness 
of  his  sufferings. 

And  this,  I  truly  believe,  is  a  long  process. 
You  can  get  it  mechanically.  You  can  tell  your 
young  people  you  expect  a  certain  routine  of 
penitence,  and  that  they  must  conform  to  it.  But 
I  doubt  whether  the  good  doctor,  quite  apart  from 
anything  else,  ever  treats  people  mechanically. 
Sympathy,  experience,  tenderness,  seeking  people 
in  season  and  out  of  season,  great  refinement  and 


68  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

delicacy  of  touch,  practical  knowledge  born  of 
constant  work  among  them,  and  supernatural 
grace,  which  is  the  outcome  of  prayer, — this  will 
be  the  welcome  to  the  penitent,  which  will  attract 
him  and  draw  him  on  to  Christ. 


III. 

But,  having  preached  penitence,  and  having 
found  those  who  feel  deeply  their  need  of  forgive- 
ness, having  gained  the  confidence  of  your  people, 
how  are  you  going  to  help  them  ?  Most  certainly 
God  has  provided  in  His  Church  the  very  anodyne 
of  their  pain,  and  has  given  it  to  you  to  administer. 
I  mean  Absolution.  Now,  you  know  this  is  a 
subject  on  which  a  good  deal  is  said  which  is 
foolish,  and  a  great  deal  that  is  wrong.  Let  us 
try  and  clear  it  up,  as  far  as  we  may. 

Most  certainly,  if  we  believe  Holy  Scripture  at 
all,  everybody  is  bound  to  confess  his  sins — "  If  we 
confess  our  sins.  He  is  faithful  and  just  to  forgive 
us  our  sins ; "  and,  mark  you,  not  merely  our  sin- 
fulness, but  our  sins.     Do  our  people  realize  this  ? 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  DEALINGS  WITH  PENITENTS.  69 

It  is  SO  picturesque  and  easy  just  to  kneel  down 
and  say,  "We  have  erred  like  a  lost  sheep.  We 
all  know  that  we  are  sinners.  I  know  I  am  not 
so  good  as  I  ought  to  be."  It  adds  sometimes  a 
gentle  softening,  as  of  humility,  to  a  character 
whose  respectability  is  almost  too  obtrusive  in  its 
brilliant  colours.  Aristides  deprecates  ostracism 
by  saying  that,  after  all,  his  justice  is  defective, 
and  he  makes  no  professions.  But  it  is  quite 
another  thing  to  kneel  down  and  say,  "O  God, 
I  did  a  vile  action.  I  said  this  or  that  cruel  thing- 
to-day.  I  did  not  tell  the  truth.  To-day  I  have 
given  way  to  bitter  anger."  This  is  the  sort  of 
confession  our  Prayer-book  orders  for  her  com- 
municants, accompanied  with  a  searching  self- 
examination  by  the  rule  of  God's  Commandments. 
But  she  does  more  than  this ;  she  is  bound  to  do 
more  than  this.  There  is  an  ordinance  of  the 
Church  known  as  Absolution,  which  (of  course,  it 
could  not  have  been  otherwise ;  we  cannot  cut 
away  God's  ordinances  as  indifferent  matters)  was 
retained  at  the  Reformation  as  a  well-known, 
definite  thing.     Everybody  knew  what  Absolution 


70  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

meant  then ;  everybody  knows  what  it  means  now 
To  retain  the  term,  if  something  else  was  meant 
by  that  term,  would  be  about  as  reasonable  as  if 
an  inhabitant  of  Leicester  were  to  leave  behind  in 
his  will,  as  his  advice,  that,  in  face  of  the  opposi- 
tion to  that  medical  process  called  vaccination,  all 
his  children  should  be  periodically  vaccinated  at 
stated  times,  as  a  preventive  against  small-pox, 
when  he  only  meant  by  this  that  they  were  to 
take  cooKng  medicine  when  they  required  it. 
Surely  it  is  playing  with  the  meaning  of  terms 
if  we  suppose  Absolution  to  mean  reading  "the 
Comfortable  Words,"  or  reading  out  texts  of  Holy 
Scripture,  or  declaring  that  God  forgives  sins  on 
repentance,  which  a  child  could  say  with  as  much 
truth  and  power  as  a  Priest.  No ;  the  Church 
has  put  into  our  hands  the  power  which  has  been 
lodged  in  the  Church  from  the  very  beginning 
and  was  committed  to  us  at  our  ordination — 
"  Whose  soever  sins  ye  remit,  they  are  remitted 
unto  them;  and  whose  soever  sins  ye  retain, 
they  are   retained."  ^     And   it  is  this  great,  this 

»  St.  John  XX.  23. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  DEALINGS  WITH  PENITENTS,   7 1 

unspeakable  gift  that  we  can  bestow  upon  the 
penitent  in  his  dealings  with  his  sins ;  which  we, 
and  only  we,  can  give  him.  And  to  obtain  this 
he  must  make  Confession  as  the  contribution  on 
his  part,  which  we  always  find  in  the  case  of  any 
recipient  of  Divine  grace. 

But  here  we  are  confronted  with  several  objec- 
tions. In  the  first  place,  people  say  all  this  blessing 
which  you  hint  at  can  be  obtained  in  the  Public 
Confessions  and  Absolutions  of  the  Divine  Ofiice, 
and  more  especially  of  the  Holy  Communion. 
Surely  it  is  quite  sufficient  if  I  examine  myself, 
and  remember  my  sins,  and  read  them  with  true 
contrition  into  the  Public  Confession,  and  obtain 
the  Public  Absolution.  Well,  in  the  first  place, 
"  sufficient "  is  hardly  the  term  we  like  to  use  in 
dealing  with  repentance  for  our  sins.  Our  blessed 
Lord  did  not  ask  what  was  "  sufficient "  when  for 
us  men  and  for  our  salvation  He  came  down  from 
heaven,  but  He  emptied  Himself  of  His  glory.  He 
did  not  ask  what  was  "  sufficient "  when,  to  make 
Atonement,  He  shed  His  Blood  in  the  bitterness  of 
His  Cross  and  Passion.     In  view  of  our  sins,  do  we 


72  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

not  need  rather  to  ask,  "  Is  there  anything  more 
that  I  could  do  ?  Is  there  anything  to  make  me 
feel  my  sins  more,  to  deepen  my  contrition  ? " 
Awjplius  lava  me  .•  "  Wash  me  more  and  more 
from  my  wickedness."  Surely  thus  to  run  in,  as  it 
were,  under  the  public  Absolutions  would  be  to 
endeavour  to  snatch  a  Sacramental  blessing  with 
the  smallest  possible  expenditure  of  personal  shame 
and  trouble.  God  forbid  that  we  should  say  it 
is  impossible !  It  is  possible  to  wash  in  a 
tiny  basin,  but  it  is  easier  and  better  to  use 
the  cleansing  bath.  For  although  almost  certainly 
the  Absolutions  in  the  public  services  are  real 
sprinklings  of  Absolution  pronounced  by  the 
Priest  alone,  yet  surely  they  are  final  Absolutions 
pronounced  over  people  already  believed  to  be 
pardoned,  for  the  purposes  of  the  immediate 
service  in  hand.  They  are  a  kind  of  ceremonial 
cleansing  of  the  wedding  guest  before  he  enters 
the  Presence ;  a  spiritual  laver  standing  before 
the  door  of  the  sanctuary — "that  those  things 
may  please  Him,  which  we  do  at  this  present." 
That    moment    when    we    assemble    and     meet 


7  HE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  DEALINGS  WITH  PENITENTS.  73 

together^  to  worship  God  is  a  time  for  very 
special  confession  of  sins  over  and  above  our  usual 
private  penitence.  And  note  these  public  Absolu- 
tions are  no  new  thing  introduced  when  private 
Absolution  fell  into  abeyance,  or,  rather,  ceased  to 
be  compulsory  at  the  Eeformation.  They  are  to 
be  found  in  the  old  Choir  Offices  of  Prime  and 
Compline.  In  the  Roman  Mass,  every  one  who 
receives  the  Blessed  Sacrament,  and  as  a  prelimi- 
nary has  received  private  Absolution,  has  said  over 
him  before  his  Communion  a  second  Absolution  in 
public:  "Misereatur  vestri  Omnipotens  Deus,  et 
dimissis   peccatis   vestris   perducat  vos   ad   vitam 

'  That  this  is  possible  we  see  in  the  Kiibric  in  •'  The  Form  of 
Prayer  to  be  used  at  Sea  " : — 

"When  there  shall  be  imminent  clanger,  as  many  as  can  be 
spared  from  necessary  service  in  the  Ship  shall  be  called  together, 
and  make  an  humble  Confession  of  their  sin  to  God:  in  which 
every  one  ought  seriously  to  reflect  upon  those  particular  sins  of 
which  his  conscience  shall  accuse  him,  saying  as  followeth  : — 

"  Almighty  God,  Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,"  etc. 

Just  as  in  a  similar  manner  a  sick  man  can  be  assured  that  in 
great  extremity  a  spiritual  communion  will  secure  to  him  all  the 
benefits  of  an  actual  communion. 

But  surely  we  do  not  need  to  act  in  our  daily  life  as  if  we  were 
in  imminent  danger  in  a  storm  at  sea. 


74  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

seternam.  Amen.  Indulgentiam,  absolutionem  et 
remissionem  peccatorum  nostrorum  tribuat  nobis 
Omnipotens  et  misericors  Dominus.     Amen." 

Neither  does  the  often-quoted  exhortation  in  the 
First  Prayer-book  of  Edward  VI.  countenance  this 
idea.  It  runs  as  follows :  "  Requiring  such  as  shall 
be  satisfied  with  a  general  Confession  not  to  be 
offended  with  them  that  do  use  to  their  further 
satisfying  the  auricular  and  secret  Confession  to  the 
Priest ;  nor  those  also  which  think  needful  or  con- 
venient for  the  quietness  of  their  own  conscience 
particularly  to  open  their  sins  to  the  Priest  to  be 
offended  with  them  that  are  satisfied  with  their 
humble  Confession  to  God  and  the  general  Confes- 
sion to  the  Church,  but  in  all  things  to  follow  and 
keep  the  rule  of  charity,  and  every  man  to  be 
satisfied  with  his  own  conscience,  not  judging  other 
men's  minds  or  consciences;  whereas  he  hath  no 
warrant  of  God's  word  to  the  same."  ^ 

Note  here,  as  in  our  present  Prayer-book,  it  is 
assumed  that  the  penitent's  preparation  shall  be 
conducted  at  some  length  and  with  great  earnest- 

^  Exhortation,  First  Prayer-book  of  Edward  VI.,  a.d.  1549. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  DEALINGS  WITH  PENITENTS.  75 

ness  in  private  before  coming  to  the  service  of 
Holy  Communion.  And  in  doing  this  the  penitent 
can  do  one  of  two  things  :  he  can  either  confess  his 
sins  to  God  with  earnest  contrition,  which  is  here 
described  as  "  his  humble  Confession  to  God,"  and 
obtain  from  God  the  pardon  which  He  always 
vouchsafes  to  true  penitents ;  or  else  he  can  confess 
his  sins  to  God  before  His  Priest,  and  obtain  Sacra- 
mental Absolution,  a  definite  assurance  of  pardon, 
accompanied  with  a  special  grace.  Then,  which- 
ever course  he  chooses  to  take,  he  goes  to  church, 
and  makes  what  is  here  called  a  "  general  Con- 
fession to  the  Church"  of  sinfulness,  and  obtains, 
although  in  any  case  a  forgiven  man,  Absolution 
again,  for  the  purpose  of  the  service;  just  as  a 
man,  however  clean,  washes  his  hands  afresh 
before  going  to  the  banquet  of  the  King. 

No,  if  we  reject  Absolution  and  private  Confes- 
sion, we  must  insist  all  the  more  on  the  greater 
earnestness  of  private  Confession  to  God,  and  find 
some  mode,  if  we  can,  of  deepening  our  contrition. 
The  contrast  is  not  between  private  and  public 
Absolution,  but  between  private    forgiveness    of 


76  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

sins,  which  God  gives  to  an  earnest  penitent,  and 
private  Absolution,  which  God  gives  as  a  Sacra- 
mental gift  to  all  who  have  done  their  part  by- 
private  Confession ;  both  of  these  being  the 
Church's  method  by  which  we  may  prepare  our- 
selves for  public  worship. 

Perhaps  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  allude  to  the 
objections  which  are  advanced  from  time  to  time 
against  this  salutary  ordinance.  They  are,  for 
the  most  part,  the  objections  of  people  who  have 
no  practical  experience  of  the  matter  at  all.  Take, 
for  instance,  the  assertion  that  Confession  weakens 
the  will.  It  weakens  the  will  just  so  far,  and  no 
further,  as  the  Priest  allows  a  person  to  repose  in 
his  direction  and  advice,  instead  of  following  the 
dictates  and  orders  of  his  own  conscience  and 
Divinely  illuminated  sense.  This  weakening  of 
the  will  has  nothing  to  do  with  Confession.  The 
Priest  who  is  always  allowing  his  parishioners  to 
consult  him  on  all  matters,  so  that  they  never  stir 
a  step  without  asking  his  advice,  which  they  seek 
in  the  private  interview  and  the  godly  converse,  is 
in  this  way  impairing  the  wills  of  his  people  just 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  DEALINGS  WITH  PENITENTS.  77 

as  much  as  by  the  supposed  weakening  which  goes 
on  in  Confession.  Are  we  not  in  danger  of  looking 
too  much  at  the  humiliation  of  the  Confession,  or 
the  help  given  by  direction,  and  not  enough  at  the 
pure  and  surpassing  grace  given  in  Absolution  ? 
This  is  the  grace  which  is  quite  unlike  any  other 
grace  in  the  world  for  overcoming  sin.  It  is 
useless  to  describe  it  oh  extra.  "Come  and  see" 
is  the  only  advice  which  is  of  real  and  salutary 
avail.  No — that  which  weakens  the  will  is  sin — 
the  deadly  warp  of  sin.  But  Confession  of  sin,  that 
never  weakens  the  will,  and  never  can.  The 
perpetual  seeking  for  advice  and  for  some  pleasant 
remedy  which  is  powerless  against  the  deep- 
seated  evil — these  may  be  dangerous.  Only,  may 
I  venture  to  say  here  a  word  of  caution  ?  I  do 
think  we  make  a  great  mistake  if,  for  lack  of  time 
or  pressure  of  penitents  or  by  reason  of  our  own 
dryness  and  lack  of  spiritual  power,  we  send 
penitents  away  without  a  word  of  advice.  It  is 
good  for  their  humility ;  it  is  good  for  their  soul's 
health.  They  need  it;  it  impresses  on  them  the 
sinfulness  of  their  sin ;  it  gives  them  the  advantage 


78  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

of  the  opinion  of  an  outside  person.  Do  not  let  us 
fall  into  mechanical  officialism.  If  other  Priests 
do  not  do  it,  that  is  no  reason  why  we  should  not. 
If  Absolution  and  direction  are  two  distinct  things, 
this  may  be  granted.  But  there  are  other  ways  of 
marking  the  distinction.  We  are  getting  rabbled 
out  of  our  prayers,  our  meditations,  our  Offices,  by 
the  exigencies  of  work.  Do  not  let  us  be  rabbled 
out  of  the  best  and  most  potent  opportunity  for 
advice  which  touches  a  man's  inmost  soul.  Do  not 
let  us  be  like  the  perfunctory  doctor  who  hurries 
over  a  crowd  of  official  patients ;  but  let  us  imitate 
the  physician  who  carefully  and  earnestly  examines 
every  case  and  prescribes  with  minute  attention, 
as  if  his  ante-room  were  empty,  and  his  paper 
of  engagements  a  blank. 

This  is  what  the  Times  obituary  notice  says 
of  the  late  Sir  Kichard  Quain : — 

"Always  cheerful,  always  hopeful,  he  had  the 
gift  of  adapting  his  discourse  to  the  mental  and 
bodily  condition  of  the  hearer;  and  he  had  the 
still  greater  gift  of  never  being  in  a  hurry  and 
of  never  seeming  to  be  impatient.     How  his  leisure 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  DEALINGS  WITH  PENITENTS.   79 

was  obtained,  and  how  he  crowded  into  the  avail- 
able hours  the  work  of  his  ordinary  day,  were 
mysteries  which  few  could  fathom;  but  when  he 
was  in  a  sick-room,  it  is  certain  that  he  did  not 
appear  to  have  a  thought  beyond  its  boundaries, 
or  that  was  not  devoted  to  the  welfare  of  the 
sufferer  whom  he  was  called  upon  to  aid." 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  condescend  to  answer 
the  people  who  talk  about  "the  filthy  Confes- 
sional." I  do  not  know  what  it  means.  From  a 
long  experience  of  more  than  thirty  years  I  can 
only  say  that  if  there  are  people  who  make 
Confession  filthy,  they  are  the  same  people  who 
make  the  Bible  filthy,  and  Church-going  filthy, 
and  the  ordinary  social  dealings  of  life  filthy.  We 
cannot  legislate  for  the  filthy:  "De  minimis  non 
curat  lex."  But,  at  the  same  time,  I  know  that  it 
does  require  absolute  delicacy,  refinement  of  touch, 
prayer,  and  great  carefulness.  The  surgeon  may 
be  poisoned  while  cutting  out  a  sore.  The  surgeon 
may  bungle,  and  start  a  sore  which  was  not 
there  before.  But  all  these  dangers  exist  in  far 
greater  acuteness    in    the   spiritual   diagnosis    or 


8o  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

consultation  which  is  suggested  in  its  place  when 
the  clergyman  plunges  about  with  his  knife,  test- 
ing an  unwilling  patient,  instead  of  painfully  and 
carefully  listening  to  what  he  believes  to  be  a 
faithful  enumeration  of  the  exact  diseases  which 
are  laying  siege  to  life. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  Absolution  is  an  immense 
help  to  our  people.  I  do  not  say  that  we  are 
to  go  about  preaching  it  in  season  and  out  of 
season;  that  would  only  defeat  our  object.  But 
we  ought  to  let  it  be  known  that  there  is  such 
a  power,  more  especially  in  preparing  candidates 
for  Confirmation  and  for  Holy  Communion,  by 
reading  the  Exhortation  in  the  Prayer-book,  by 
giving  them  individual  advice,  by  preaching 
penitence.  I  can  only  say,  from  my  own  experience, 
that  there  are  certain  sins  which  Confession  alone 
will  touch :  sins  of  long  standing,  sins  of  great 
malignity;  sins  when  a  man  falls  below  his  own 
standard  and  wants  outside  help,  when  he  wants 
a  voice  to  answer,  and  say  to  him  that  he  is 
forgiven,  and  grace  to  make  him  stronger.  I 
think  we  ought  to  make  a  firm  resolution  that, 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  DEALINGS  WITH  PENITENTS.  8l 

if  we  have  no  experience  of  Confession,  we  will 
never  say  anything  against  it.  I  hold  that  so  to  do 
is  wicked ;  and,  in  view  of  the  ordinary  experience 
which  any  Priest  could  give,  is — unintentionally, 
of  course — to  play  into  the  hands  of  the  devil. 
You  know  how  Mr.  Keble  longed  for  its  revival; 
how  he  described  our  methods  without  it  to  be  like 
a  man  stumbling  along  his  way  in  the  dark,  who 
treads  into  puddles  and  makes  false  steps  because 
he  does  not  know  his  path.  Certainly  a  phy- 
sician who  treats  his  patient  generally  as  being 
ill,  without  knowing  what  is  the  matter  with  him, 
must  either  give  him  coloured  water,  or  else  run 
a  risk  sometimes  of  giving  him  poison  instead  of 
the  medicine  suitable  for  his  disease. 

One  thing  we  must  remember  when  we  talk  of 
Absolution  as  an  occasional  remedy.  How  do  we 
know  the  occasion,  or  who  wants  it  ?  The  startling 
thing  is  to  find  how  it  is  the  good  people  who 
so  often  need  it — the  best  boy  at  school,  the 
regular  communicant ;  yes,  the  Priest  who  is 
eating  his  heart  out  because  he  cannot  shake  off 
the  yoke  of  some  galling  sin.     And  here  we  sit 

G 


82  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

with  the  remedy  in  our  hands,  and  say  it  is  a  bad 
thing  always  to  be  taking  medicine.  Perhaps  so ; 
but  not  when  you  live  in  a  morass,  and  drink  in 
the  malaria  of  the  world,  and  are  actually  being 
wounded  by  a  malignant  serpent,  or  when  you 
are  afflicted  with  a  dangerous  illness.  Many 
people,  on  the  other  hand,  are  killed  by  doctoring 
themselves. 


IV. 

Just  one  word  in  conclusion.  My  old  Vicar  and 
dear  friend.  Dean  Butler,  to  whom  I  owe  so  much, 
a  man  the  memory  of  whom  makes  one  smile 
when  people  talk  of  Confession  as  weakening  the 
will;  a  strong,  vigorous,  trenchant,  resolute  man, 
as  hard  as  flint  and  as  downright  as  a  lion — he 
has  said :  "  Of  one  thing  I  seem  certain,  that  it 
cannot  properly  be  urged  but  by  a  confessing 
clergy."^  And  what  he  preached  we  knew  he 
systematically  practised.  Is  it  not  so  ?  I  cannot 
quite  see  the  spiritual  force  of  the  argument :  "  I 

'  '*  Life  and  Letters  of  Dean  Butler,"  p.  QQ. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  BE  A  LINGS  WITH  PENITENTS.   83 

cannot  hear  the  Confessions  of  others  if  I  do  not 
make  Confession  myself."  I  do  not  recognize  the 
force  of  the  word  "  cannot ; "  I  would  rather  say 
"I  will  not."  I  suppose  it  would  be  almost 
incredible  that  we  should  go  on  dispensing  this 
wonderful  grace,  while  all  the  time  we  left  our 
own  sores  untended  and  unhealed  by  a  help 
whose  power  and  whose  efficacy  were  so  abundantly 
displayed.  I  would  say,  further,  that  we  clergy 
need  it  more  than  other  people,  our  work  is  so 
delicate ;  we  come  very  near  to  God.  Just  as  a 
person  who  has  very  fine  work  to  do  needs  constant 
washing,  so  we  seem  to  need  it  more  than  others ; 
we  who  approach  the  Altar  so  frequently ;  we  who 
are  so  beset  with  the  dangers  of  formalism ;  we 
who  are  always  preaching,  and  so  seldom  get  an 
opinion  on  our  own  lives ;  we  who  have  to  venture 
into  dangerous  positions,  and  labour  amidst  the 
dust  and  filth  and  contamination  of  the  world ; 
yes,  we  need  it  more  than  others.  Sometimes  it 
will  come  across  us  as  Israel  comes  back  routed 
from  the  battle,  and  parish  things  go  wrong,  and 
the  Church  makes  no  progress :  "  Am  I,  after  all, 


84  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

that  Achan  ?  Are  these  the  wedges  of  forbidden 
gold,  the  secret  sins  of  my  youth,  still  buried 
beneath  the  tent,  the  Babylonish  garment  of  past 
carelessness  ?  "  "  Brother,  reform  thyself."  It  is 
the  first  call  to  Church  reform. 

When  things  go  wrong,  when  we  say  we  ought 
to  go  somewhere  else,  when  everything  seems  to 
fail, — is  it  all  right  within  ? 

Most  certainly  sin,  and  how  to  deal  with  it,  is 
the  most  pressing  question  which  besets  a  Priest ; 
if  he  does  not  beat  it  down  with  the  power  of  the 
Cross,  it  will  beat  him.  Penitence  is  wanted  more 
than  culture ;  personal  dealing  more  than  platform 
oratory ;  the  Priest  more  than  the  district  visitor. 
Take  nothing  for  granted;  sin  is  everywhere.  If 
we  raise  up  the  sacerdotal  garment,  the  leprosy  is 
beneath ;  and  we  kneel  at  the  head  of  our  congrega- 
tion, a  sinner  among  sinners,  and  say,  "  Lord,  if 
Thou  wilt.  Thou  canst  make  me  clean." 


LECTURE  IV. 

THE   PRIEST   IK   HIS   PARISH. 

"  O  guide  us  when  our  faithless  hearts 

From  Thee  would  start  aloof, 
Where  Patience  her  sweet  skill  imparts 

Beneath  some  cottage  roof  ; 
Revive  our  dying  fires,  to  burn 

High  as  her  anthems  soar, 
And  of  our  scholars  let  us  leam 

Our  own  forgotten  lore," 

It  is  a  solemn  moment  when  we  first  enter  the 
parish  where  we  have  to  minister.  You  remember 
your  first  curacy ;  the  buildings — how  interesting 
the  church  was! — whether  it  were  beautiful  or 
ugly,  this  was  where  you  had  to  minister — full 
of  traditions  to  the  people,  of  which  you  yourself 
as  yet  knew  nothing.  The  names  on  tombs,  on 
the  walls ;  the  hideous  windows — beautiful  to 
them ;  the  altar — not  correct,  you  thought  it — it 
was  the  daily  delight  of  some  of  them ;  the  walls, 


86  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

the  floor,  the  roof,  the  seats,  the  pulpit,  were  all 
written  over  with  inscriptions,  in  a  cypher  which 
long  intercourse  with  your  people  and  knowledge 
of  their  secret  would  alone  enable  you  to  read. 
Then  the  church  officials,  how  they  stared  at  you ! 
— the  old  sexton,  the  bell-ringer,  the  organist,  all 
wondering  how  you  would  affect  them;  whether 
their  privileges  were  safe;  whether  you  had  any 
strange  notions;  whether  they  were  to  treat  you 
as  a  sort  of  new  boy  come  to  school.  And  then 
the  schools !  Ah,  the  misery,  when  you  find  all 
the  children  locked  up  from  you  under  the  jealous 
eye  of  a  Board  !  But  if  not,  as  you  go  in,  all  those 
little  faces,  so  quick,  eager,  inquisitive,  the  future 
men  and  women  of  the  parish,  which  you  will 
either  form  or  deform.  The  people  in  the  streets, 
the  shops,  they  are  all  so  strangely  interesting 
— my  parish ! 


I. 

And  surely  this  is  a  legitimate  sentiment.     We 
are  casting  into  the  great  crucible  of  the  present 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PARISH.  87 

ferment  all  manner  of  time-honoured  institutions. 
Parochialism,  more  especially  here  in  London,  is, 
from  the  nature  of  things,  only  loosely  and  lightly 
maintained ;  but  still  there  is  immense  good  in  it. 
If  our  people  like  to  destroy  and  break  down  the 
limits  of  the  parochial  organization,  we  Priests 
shall,  nevertheless,  find  the  parochial  delimitation 
practically  a  great  help  to  us  in  our  work. 

Divide  et  impera.  Here  is  a  definite,  to  a 
certain  extent  manageable,  division  of  the  great 
seething  mass  of  humanity.  Within  certain  limits 
marked  off"  on  the  map,  I  am  responsible  for  the 
well-being  of  every  man,  woman,  and  child  who 
passes  his  time  in  it,  and  calls  it  his  parish  and  his 
home. 

Where  this  is  literally  possible,  it  is  a  great 
blessing  and  a  great  power ;  and  therefore  a  man 
is  foolish  who  despises  a  small  parish.  It  is  an 
opportunity  of  doing  a  small  piece  of  work  in  an 
exquisite  and  finished  way,  which  reacts  on  the 
whole  neighbourhood,  and  far  out  into  the  Church. 
Where  this  is  not  possible — and  do  not  let  us 
assume    it    too    hurriedly  —  where    one    man    is 


PRIESTLY  IDEALS, 


confronted  by  thousands,  or  by  birds  of  passage,  or 
is  planted  down  among  infidels  or  aliens,  or  those 
of  another  Obedience  who  reject  him  and  his 
ministration,  still  they  are  all  his  people,  all  his 
charge ;  he  is  not  the  parish  Priest  of  a  part,  but  of 
all.  He  cannot  accept  the  Dissenting  Minister  as 
anything  else  but  one  of  his  parishioners  who  has 
no  real  charge  and  no  real  right  to  deal  with  his 
people,  but  whom  he  will  regard  in  the  ordinary 
parochial  friendly  relationship.  And  in  cases  like 
this  (I  suppose  the  most  ordinary  case  in  a  London 
parish),  at  least,  he  will  make  a  study  of  his 
district.  He  will  not  merely  open  his  church,  like 
a  van  in  the  market-place,  and  just  welcome  all 
who  come ;  he  will  make  a  study  of  the  streets, 
the  occupations,  the  religious  professions  of  his 
people.  Is  it  too  much  to  ask  that  at  least  the 
names  of  all  the  people  should  be  known  to  the 
Clergy,  that  they  may  bring  them  before  God,  and 
scientifically  deal  with  them  ?  And  then  he  will 
have  his  organizations,  his  reservoirs  of  good,  in 
guilds  and  classes;  his  outposts;  his  missionaries; 
his  district  visitors ; — only  I  do  feel  that  the  parish 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PARISH.  89 

Priest  should  be  in  touch  with  all  this.  "  Visit  ? 
Oh  no;  I  have  no  time  for  visiting.  My  dis- 
trict visitors  do  thafc,  however,  instead  of  me." 
"Schools?  Oh  no;  I  have  no  time  for  schools. 
One  of  the  curates  looks  in  sometimes  to  say 
Prayers;  besides,  I  have  got  a  first-rate  master." 
''That  alley?  Oh,  it  is  of  no  use  for  me  to  go 
there ;  I  have  a  first-rate  colonel,  who  comes  down 
from  the  West  End,  who  manages  all  that  for  me. 
He  has  got  a  class  of  ragged  boys  who  will  do 
anything  for  him." 

This  may  be  all  very  well;  but  there  is  a 
difierence  in  the  man  who,  while  "facit  'per  aliuni,'' 
yet  "  facit  'per  se  "  (it  is  still  always /ac^^^,  "he  does 
it "),  and  the  man  who  practically  deparochializes 
himself — sublets  his  parish  rights  to  various 
tenants,  and  just  retains  the  vicarage  and  the 
church,  and  occasionally  receives  in  rent  the 
chorus  of  praise  which  belongs  to  a  man  who  is 
a  splendid  organizer.  No,  depend  upon  it,  for 
practical  purposes  a  parish  is  an  invaluable  insti- 
tution; and  I  would  say  now,  make  the  most  of 
it,   hope   for  it  (that   is   all-important;   we   shall 


90  PRIESTLY  IDEALS, 

never  get  on  without  hope),  and,  almost  above  all, 
be  proud  of  it.  There  are  bright  examples  all 
up  and  down  the  country  of  men  who,  like  the 
monks  of  old,  have  settled  down  on  the  fever- 
stricken  morass,  with  its  stubborn  growth  of  weeds 
and  its  unyielding  soil,  and  have  prayed  and 
laboured  until  the  desert  has  blossomed  like  a 
rose,  and  their  parish  has  become  a  glory  and  a 
pride.  I  can  think  of  three  cases  which  will 
illustrate  what  I  mean.  One  is  a  village  on  a 
bleak  stretch  of  down,  where  jockeys  and  trainers 
form  almost  the  entire  population.  Among  these 
laboured  devotedly  an  earnest  Priest.  Jockeys 
sung  in  his  choir,  trainers  supported  him  in  his 
work ;  and  when  he  died,  at  his  funeral  there 
was  a  sight  not  often  seen  in  England,  men  kneel- 
ing on  the  ground  in  the  churchyard  outside,  who 
were  unable  to  get  into  the  church,  packed  with 
a  devout  and  sorrowing  congregation.  Another 
instance  is  in  a  large  town  where  Church  prin- 
ciples, even  now,  have  to  contend  fitfully  and 
with  difficulty  against  the  results  of  years  of  neg- 
lect, and  the  outcome  of  triumphant  Secularism. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PARISH.  91 

Here  are  two  Priests,  hunted,  pelted,  mobbed, 
yet  sticking  to  it  in  their  little  iron  church, 
and,  before  they  died,  living  to  see  two  large 
churches  built,  if  not  three,  filled  with  devout 
worshippers  from  among  their  own  people — large 
Church  schools,  and  a  devout  and  intense  paro- 
chial patriotism.  And  the  third  is  an  example 
of  a  place  where  men,  with  their  own  hands, 
in  their  off-work  time,  actually  built  their  own 
church,  and  so  exhibited  the  power  of  this  paro- 
chial sentiment. 

Do  not  let  us  despise  our  parish,  or  work 
always  with  one  foot  out  of  it,  one  eye  looking 
elsewhere,  and  our  heart  wholly  somewhere  else. 
Do  not  let  us  say,  "I  shall  be  better  among 
educated  people."  It  is  a  pity  to  be  a  failure 
anywhere;  and  most  often  to  have  failed  among 
the  poor  is  a  sure  indication  that  a  ministry 
among  the  more  educated  will  be  a  failure  also. 
The  more  unpromising  the  materials,  the  greater 
the  glory  and  the  joy  of  having  rescued  a  bit 
of  waste  land  and  made  it  blossom  for  the  Lord. 


92  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

11. 

Having  accepted,  then,  your  post  as  part  of  your 
vocation ;  having  recognized  that  "  vocation  as  a 
call  to  God,  and  not  a  call  to  work,"  and  that  God 
has  placed  you  there;  having  studied,  and 
organized,  and  made  your  survey ; — you  will  pro- 
bably find,  at  least  in  most  parishes,  that  your 
work  is  of  two  main  kinds  :  one,  the  edification 
of  the  faithful ;  and  the  other,  the  more  ordinary 
mission  work  to  those  who  are  practically  outside 
Christian  influence. 

(a)  As  regards  the  first,  there  is  no  doubt  that  it  is 
the  most  serious  and  important  work.  We  cannot 
advance  without  it.  The  body  of  the  faithful  is  a 
sort  of  hollow  square,  inside  which  are  included  all 
the  weak  and  timid,  with  which  in  close  formation 
the  Church  marches  across  the  desert,  flanked, 
harassed  in  the  rear,  by  the  incessant  assaults  of 
the  World,  the  Flesh,  and  the  Devil.  In  the 
formation  of  this  hollow  square  four  constituent 
elements  are  employed.  First  of  all,  there  are  the 
clergy ;    and    how    difficult  it    is   to  keep    up  to 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PARISH.  93 

the  mark !  "  No  time,  no  time ;  so  tired,  so 
tired;  my  uniform  is  rent  and  soiled,  my  face 
blackened  with  gunpowder,  my  shoes  worn  out 
with  marching !  "  And  yet  we  must  keep  up,  we 
must  keep  dressed ;  a  button  missing  on  the  coat  is 
a  serious  breach  of  military  discipline.  We  must 
keep  up,  prayers  must  be  said,  meditation  must  be 
made;  we  must  observe  and  compare,  and  never 
sink  down  to  the  level  of  our  surroundings — that 
is  vital — nor  get  careless  and  flippant,  and  lose 
(jEfjLvorr^g,  or  get  lax  and  slipshod,  and  lose  refine- 
ment and  brightness  of  spirit.  "  What  we  are 
comes  before  what  we  teach."  And  there  is  a 
perpetual  struggle  going  on,  did  we  but  know  it,  as 
to  which  is  to  teach  which,  refinement,  degradation ; 
or  degradation,  refinement.  Always  come  dressed 
on  to  parade,  always  keep  bright  and  smart ;  you 
will  not  be  obeyed  as  you  ought  to  be,  you  will  not 
get  your  army  across  the  desert,  if  you  become  out 
at  elbows,  and  just  one  of  the  people.  Remember 
you  are  an  officer ! 

And   then  there    comes   the   band   of   Church- 
workers,  teachers,  visitors,  helpers  of  all  sorts.    We 


94  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

must  tell  them  again  and  again  that  they  must  be 
teachers  "  come  from  God  ; "  that  they  never  must 
lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  they  have  got  to  get 
Israel  out  of  Egypt;  that  Pharaoh  is  as  crafty 
now  as  ever  he  was.  Either  he  wants  Israel  only 
to  go  just  a  little  way  into  the  wilderness — that  is, 
not  to  be  too  extreme;  not  to  push  religion  too 
far,  to  keep  it  for  Sundays — and  then  come  back 
to  him ;  or,  when  he  finds  this  will  not  do,  he  says, 
"  Leave  the  children  behind ;  go  ye  that  are  men. 
Do  not  worry  me  about  religious  education,  let  me 
have  one  who  will  go  ahead,  and  not  bother  the 
children  about  theological  distinctions.  Go  now  ye 
that  are  men,  and  serve  the  Lord ;  for  that  ye  did 
desire."  And  when  that  will  not  serve,  Pharaoh 
then  expresses  a  desire  to  have  the  cattle,  the 
endowments  and  money  of  the  churches,  and  tells 
us  that  all  we  want  is  to  stand  out  in  a  bare  and 
simple  spirituality.  But  no;  he  has  to  be  told 
plainly  and  directly  that  we  are  going  right 
out  of  Egypt ;  that  we  are  going  with  our  young 
and  with  our  old,  and  with  our  flocks  and  with 
our  herds ;   that  the  Church   of   God   is   a  great 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PARISH.  95 

organization  moving  across  the  plain;  and  that 
we  come  to  the  people,  not  as  sanitary  im- 
provers, or  political  agents,  but  in  the  Name  of 
God. 

Then  there  is  the  choir.  I  wonder  if  we  think 
enough  of  the  extreme  importance  of  insisting  that 
a  great  many  things  are  of  more  value  in  a 
chorister  than  a  good  voice;  that  it  is  a  very 
serious  thing  to  stand  up  and  conduct  the  service 
of  God's  people  ?  I  think  it  was  the  old  Emperor 
William  of  Germany  who  said  that  he  always 
used  to  judge  of  the  discipline  of  a  regiment,  as  it 
marched  past,  by  the  band.  Difficult,  disappointing, 
distracting  folk  are  choirs ;  and  they  need  a  great 
deal  of  watching.  And  how  they  live  comes  before 
how  they  sing.  Do  let  us  avoid  all  mawkish 
sentiment  and  petting,  and  ''angel  voices,"  and 
"  dying  young,"  and  all  that  sentimental  nonsense  ; 
and  remember  that  it  is  a  matter  for  very  stem 
discipline,  and  that  he  who  has  charge  of  the  choir 
has  the  charge  of  the  most  difficult  thing  in  the 
parish,  which  requires  a  great  deal  of  prayer, 
watchfulness,  and  inflexible  severity. 


96  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

And  then  there  comes  the  general  body  of  com- 
municants. I  suppose  in  most  parishes  now  there 
is  an  arranged  system  of  classes  or  guilds  for  the 
communicants.  This  system  was  carried  to  great 
perfection  by  Dean  Butler  at  Wantage.  It  is  thus 
described  in  his  "  Life  and  Letters,"  pp.  107, 108  : — 
"  I  have  found  it  necessary  in  a  country  town  to 
form'  no  less  than  twelve  classes,  which  are  [held] 
invariably  in  the  week  which  precedes  the  first 
Sunday  of  every  month,  and  before  the  greater 
festivals.  These  classes  vary  greatly  in  size.  The 
smallest  has  eight  names  only,  the  largest  forty-five. 
On  the  wliole  the  numbers,  which  at  first  were 
under  thirty,  have  now  passed  three  hundred.  A 
careful  list  is  kept  of  absentees,  who  are  always 
specially  visited  and  invited  not  to  pass  over  the 
next  time.  A  few,  as  might  be  expected,  slip 
through  as  years  flow  on,  sometimes  from  old  age, 
or  other  reasonable  causes,  sometimes  from  idleness, 
but  the  leakage  is  more  than  made  up  for  by  those 
whom  each  Confirmation  and  close  and  continuous 
parish  sifting  adds." 

He  continues  with  "a  few  words  of  caution," 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PARISH.  97 

which  describe,  in  fact,  his  own  practice  for  thirty 
years. 

'''  (1)  On  no  account  should  these  classes  be 
held  in  schoolrooms,  parish-rooms,  or  aisles  o£  the 
church,  but  in  the  parsonage  itself.  It  is  of  all 
importance  to  give  them  a  friendly  aspect.  .  .  . 
(2)  The  members  of  the  classes  should  be  re- visited 
and  r6-invited.  General  notices  given  in  church  are 
of  less  than  no  value.  ...  (3)  The  classes  must  on 
no  account  be  omitted.  .  .  . 

"  In  my  opinion,  all  the  success  of  communicant 
classes  depends  simply  on  real  hard  work.  .  .  . 
Much  prayer,  much  patience,  much  tact,  and  much 
perseverance  are  here  absolutely  necessary.  .  .  . 
If,  however,  the  parish  Priest  is  not  afraid  of 
'  spending  and  being  spent,'  he  will  .  .  .  find  after 
a  time  that  he  has  established,  without  show  or 
fuss,  in  this  bit  of  parochial  machinery,  a  most 
potent  auxiliary  in  his  campaign  against  evil." 

An  organization  of  this  kind  is  of  the  very  greatest 
importance.  Something  into  which  to  draft  the 
newly  pledged  Confirmation  candidates  ;  something 
in  which  to  place  those  who  need  the  support  of 

H 


PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


numbers  and    the    sense    of    companionship ; — an 
organization,  in   fine,  through   which   Christ   and 
systematic  teaching  may  be  regularly  given.     And 
in  this  division  I  would  include  those  who,  with- 
out being  in  a  guild  or  class,  yet  belong  to  the 
inner    line    of  our    parish    life,  the  very  earnest 
and  the  very  devout.      What  are  we   doing  for 
these — the  sixth  form,  as  it  were,  in  our  schools  ? 
Are  we  guiding  their  reading  ?      Are  we   giving 
them  any  spiritual  instruction  ?     Or  are  we  shrink- 
ing back  in  a  cowardly  way  from  helping  them  ? 
St.  John  Baptist  says  to  Christ,  "  I  have  need  to  be 
baptized  of  Thee,  and  comest  Thou  to  me  ? "  ^    Still, 
he  baptized  Him.     Do  we  shrink   from   spiritual 
sermons,    spiritual  advice,   the    spiritual  training 
of  our   best  people?     "I  have  no  time  to  read." 
Ah,  there  it  is  again  !     Dry,  withered,  unfreshened 
sermons !    but    the   safety   of  our   hollow   square 
largely  depends  on  these  good  people,  whom  we 
are  bound  to  help  and  keep  up  to  the  mark. 

(6)  Then  if  we  turn  to  the  mission  side  of  our 
work,  surely  our  first  aim  is  to  bring  into  this  square 

»  St.  Matt.  iii.  14, 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PARISH  99 

as  many  outsiders  as  we  can ;  first  to  put  them  in- 
side, and  then  to  get  them  to  fall  into  line  as  they 
get  strong.  To  this  end,  therefore,  there  is  hanging 
up  in  our  study  a  list  of  the  unbaptized;  every 
baby  that  is  born  in  the  parish  is  put  down  on  it. 
There  is  in  our  note-book  a  list  of  all  the  uncon- 
firmed, whether  they  wish  to  be  confirmed  or  not. 
That  is  what  we  have  to  work  at  for  them.  Then 
there  is  a  list  of  all  who,  being  confirmed,  are  not 
yet  communicants.  That  is  the  next  stage  which 
we  have  to  work  for  in  theiin.  Then  there  are  those, 
too  many  to  classify,  who  we  know  never  come  to 
church.  That  is  the  next  thing  we  have  to  work 
at  for  them  ;  the  first  overt  act  which  we  shall  look 
for  in  their  return  to  religion. 

And  here,  perhaps,  we  go  on  to  classify.  We 
have  to  ehminate  the  Romans,  the  Dissenters,  the 
Jews,  the  Infidels.  All  these  need  special  treatment 
of  their  own.  We  have  to  eliminate  houses  where 
we  are  not  received,  and  make  them  a  subject  of 
earnest  prayer.  But  with  the  others  there  is  this 
special  aim  always  going  on :  to  make  the  careless 
come  to  church ;  to  make  all  who  come  to  church 


PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


become  confirmed ;  to  make  all  who  are  con- 
firmed, communicants,  and  pass  them  into  the 
hollow  square. 

Then  there  comes  the  definite  mission  work, 
rough  and  exacting,  to  deal  with  men  and  women 
who  seem  to  be  outside  all  religious  influences.  I 
suppose  we  run  several  dangers  here :  first,  that 
terrible  danger  of  hopelessness.  It  does  seem  so 
absolutely  hopeless  to  attempt  to  touch  the  sordid 
mass  of  sin  and  indifference.  And  yet,  I  suppose, 
nothing  ever  seemed  so  hopeless  as  the  conversion 
of  the  Koman  Empire.  To  be  hopeless  is  to  fail ;  it 
means  that  we  have  lost  faith  in  God,  in  ourselves, 
in  human  nature.  All  the  strongest  powers  are  on 
the  side  of  success,  after  all.  "  They  that  be  with 
us  are  more  than  they  that  be  with  them."  ^  Think 
of  the  work  that  is  going  on  about  those  souls ! 
The  Good  Shepherd  Himself  is  there.  He  has 
come  to  seek  that  lamb  which  He  once  carried  in 
His  arms,  now  flaunting  her  shame  in  the  streets, 
lost,  degraded,  and  unhappy  ;  but  He  has  not  given 
her  up.     There  is  a  grave  angel  bent  on  the  same 

»  2  Kings  vi.  16, 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PARISH. 


errand,  the  angrel  who  has  watched  over  her  ever 
since  her  Baptism.  He  has  not  given  her  up. 
Think  of  the  great  pleading  in  heaven,  the  mighty 
power  of  intercession,  the  innate  good  which  lies 
at  the  bottom  of  every  heart.  Do  not  despair,  do 
not  listen  to  the  inverted  gospel  of  failure.  Saul  is 
always  ready  to  stop  David  going  out  to  meet  the 
giant.  "  I  have  tried  it  often  and  often,"  he  says  : 
"  it  is  of  no  good ;  at  least,  you  will  want  my  sword 
and  helmet.  You  must  first  secure  the  people  their 
rights,  and  set  them  to  return  a  good  member  to 
Parliament,  or  a  proper  representative  on  the 
County  Council;  you  must  first  civilize  them." 
And  David,  who  has  not  got  much  beyond  a  Bible, 
a  few  earnest  prayers,  and  a  sense  that  God  must 
help,  is  half  inclined  to  turn  back.  No ;  do  not  let 
us  be  hopeless,  and  do  not  let  us  be  in  a  hurry. 
That  is  where  we  fail ;  we  want  to  see  it  all  in  a 
day.  We  may  have  to  reform  the  parish  through 
the  children,  which  takes  a  long  time ;  or  by  our 
martyrdom,  when  we  shall  not  see  its  reformation 
at  all  ourselves ;  or  by  methods  which  take  a  very 
long  time.     It  is  one  of  the  saddest  things  to  see 


102  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

all  the  hasty  remedies  that  are  employed  one  after 
another,  with  little  patience  or  sustained  effort. 
And,  what  is  worse,  the  confident  proclamation  of 
the  old  much-abused  precept,  which  seems  to  be 
engrained  in  human  nature :  "  Let  us  do  evil  that 
good  may  come."  How  often  we  have  scorned 
with  indignation  the  sophism  that  "It  does  not 
matter  what  a  man  believes  as  long  as  he  is  in 
earnest."  And  yet,  what  is  more  common  now 
than  to  hear,  "Yes,  it  is  difficult  to  justify;  it 
sails  perilously  near  Nestorianism ;  it  is  just  the 
thing  the  best  people  on  the  Continent  are  trying 
to  get  rid  of,  but  it  does  attract  the  people  somehow, 
and  that  Priest  is  so  good,  and  does  so  much  hard 
work,  and  is  so  devoted"?  Of  course,  on  these 
principles  every  form  of  religious  empiricism  may 
be  justified.  Even  Arius  himself  was  very  popular. 
"My  people  love  to  have  it  so."  "The  house  of 
Baal  was  full  from  one  end  to  another."  The 
gospel  of  attraction  is  largely  answerable  for 
popular  cults;  and  popular  cults  are  allowed  to 
prey  as  parasites  on  dogmatic  religion.  And  because 
the  people  love  to  have  it  so,  the  gardens  of  the 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PARISH.  103 

Church  are  planted  with  forced  flowers — large 
congregations  of  ill- taught  people,  who  look  like 
success.  There  are  no  roots,  growing  slowly  and 
steadily ;  roots  are  ugly  things,  and  will  not  flower 
in  our  time.  The  attraction  dies  away,  and  the 
flowers  wither,  and  the  next  generation  is  further 
than  ever  from  the  Faith.  They  have  never  been 
planted  in  the  house  of  the  Lord,  and  they  cannot 
flourish  in  the  courts  of  the  house  of  our  God. 


III. 

All  this  means  hard  work.  When  St.  Paul  is 
enunciating  his  doctrine  of  gifts,  he  says,  "  Having 
then  gifts  difiering  according  to  the  grace  that  is 
given  to  us,  whether  prophecy,  let  us  prophesy 
according  to  the  proportion  of  faith;  or  ministry, 
let  us  wait  on  our  ministering  :  \v  ty^  diaKovia."  ^  Be 
in  it ! — that  is  it.  Stick  to  it !  It  is  only  too  easy 
to  sail  off  on  the  doctrine  of  gifts  and  say,  "Well, 
every   one  has  his  proper  gift.      Preaching  is   a 

*  Komans  xii.  6,  7. 


104  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

gift.  I  wish  I  could  preach,  but  it  is  not  my  gift ; 
I  cannot."  Or  another  will  say,  "  I  would  gladly 
teach  in  the  schools,  but  teaching  is  a  gift  which  I 
have  not  got.  I  should  only  do  harm ;  the  school- 
master will  do  it  much  better."  Or  another  will 
say,  "Pastoral  ministration  is  a  gift.  I  do  not 
know  what  to  say.  If  people  come  to  me,  and  ask 
for  something,  well  and  good,  but  I  cannot  go 
beating  about  the  bush  to  find  what  they  do 
want;  it  is  not  my  gift."  Of  course,  it  is  well, 
it  is  only  right,  that  we  should  always  and 
everywhere  recognize  that  all  good  things  are 
gifts  of  God,  and  that  some  have  them  more 
than  others,  and  special  gifts  fall  to  special  men. 
But  it  was  never  meant  that  we  should  say, 
"Because  I  am  not  a  Saint  Chrysostom,  I  will 
not  try  to  preach  at  all;  because  I  am  not 
a  first-class  teacher,  I  am  going  to  take  no 
pains  at  all  to  develop  an  important  part  of  my 
Office;  because  I  am  not  naturally  gifted  with 
the  power  of  making  my  way,  I  am  therefore 
going  to  be  stolid,  stupid,  and  ungenial,  while  I 
yield  to  a  selfish  sloth."    No ;  if  we  have  a  gift,  and 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  PARISH  105 

if  we  have  no  gift,  we  have  undertaken  to  be  0£o{) 
Sm/coyof,  and  our  virtue  must  be  to  stick  to  this 
vocation,  Iv  t^  diaKovia. 

Now,  we  often  hear  people  say,  "  A  change  is 
good  for  every  one  after  a  time ;  three  years,  seven, 
ten  (whatever  be  the  time  when  the  precise  speaker 
wishes  to  make  a  move),  is  long  enough  for  a  man 
to  be  in  any  parish."  I  wonder  if  this  is  so  ? 
Certainly,  if  we  are  always  to  attract,  and  still  to 
attract  with  novelties,  people  may  get  tired  of  us ; 
but  if  it  is  the  same  gospel,  which  we  dare  not 
alter,  the  same  truths,  the  same  dilBficulties,  the 
same  grace,  the  same  sin  about  which  we  are 
busied,  then  surely  it  does  not  hold  good,  Dis- 
senters feel  this  strongly,  and  many  of  theni  move 
their  ministers  on,  as  a  matter  of  course,  after  a 
term  of  years.  But  to  us,  who  do  not  view  our 
people  chiefly  from  the  pulpit,  I  doubt  whether  it  is 
so.  Certainly  there  is  a  great  deal  to  be  said  on 
the  other  side.  The  Church  methods  are  slow,  and 
take  long  to  develop.  It  ought  to  take  many 
years  before  our  plants  begin  to  show  fruit ;  and 
it  is   a  great  blessing   where   he   who   plants   is 


io6  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

allowed  to  stay  long  enough  to  see  some  of  the 
fruit  of  his  labour. 

And  there  is  also  an  immense  power  in  gaining 
a  knowledge  of  our  people  and  letting  them  know 
us.  This  would  seem  to  me  to  be  one  great  virtue 
in  a  system  of  ZiaKovia  which  seems  to  be  strangely 
unpopular,  without  any  definite  reason,  or  at  least 
any  valid  reason.  The  fact  that  parochial  visiting 
is  not  practised  in  other  portions  of  the  Church 
seems  no  reason  at  all,  and  certainly  the  com- 
parative neglect  of  it  by  Dissenting  Ministers  is 
a  never-ending  source  of  weakness  to  them.  It 
does  seem  so  foolish,  when  we  are  trusted  and 
welcomed  as  no  other  clergy  are  in  the  world,  in 
the  same  way,  that  we  should  push  our  oppor- 
tunity aside  on  any  doctrinaire  grounds.  Of 
course,  I  am  aware  that  parochial  work  in  London 
and  in  the  country  are  two  very  different  things ; 
that  the  poor  man's  house  in  the  country  and  in 
town  may  be  two  very  different  things.  But  this 
neglect  is  not  confined  to  London.  I  know  there 
is  no  sacramental  value  in  visiting;  I  know  it 
may  degenerate  into  gossip,  or  become  a  system 


THE  PRIEST  IN  BIS  PARISH.  107 

of  dole-distributing ;  that  no  good  results  may 
seem  to  come  of  it.  But  there  are  other  and  more 
serious  charges  brought  against  other  branches  of 
our  Ministry,  of  which  we  take  no  notice  because 
we  know  better ;  and  so  with  this,  when  we  have 
recognized  these  dangers,  forewarned  is  fore- 
armed; but  they  are  not  sufficient  to  stop  us  in 
a  very  obvious  duty.  The  merit  of  parochial 
visitation  is  this,  that  it  helps  us  to  know  our 
people,  and  all  our  people,  in  a  way  that  we 
cannot  know  them  otherwise,  and  it  helps  them 
to  know  us.  I  could  give  you  examples,  again 
and  again,  of  what  it  effects,  and  how  people 
miss  it.  I  could  give  you  examples  of  Priests 
and  people  becoming  estranged  and  strained  in 
their  relations  simply  because  they  did  not  know 
each  other.  I  am  speaking  in  the  interest  of 
that  large  floating  neutrality,  who  will  not,  as 
yet,  come  out  into  our  hollow  square,  and  yet 
have  not  joined  the  ranks  of  the  avowed  enemy. 
I  am  speaking  in  the  interest  of  those  who  can 
be  approached  through  their  hearts,  and  can  be 
drawn   by    sympathy.      I   am    speaking    in    the 


io8  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

interest  of  the  parish  Priest  himself.  Why  does 
that  man  get  up  in  the  pulpit  on  Sunday  and 
preach  a  sermon  full  of  terms  which  his  people  do 
not  understand  any  more  than  if  they  were  Greek  ? 
It  is  because  he  does  not  know  the  languag-e  of  the 
country,  and  how  these  terms  need  to  be  translated. 
Why  does  another  get  up  and  preach  about  some 
absorbing  topic  in  the  Church  newspapers  ?  His 
parishioners  are  wrapped  up  in  the  sad  news  of 
"  Tom's  "  death  in  America,  who  was  known  in  the 
neighbourhood,  or  are  entirely  absorbed  in  some 
local  difficulties  which  appeal  to  them  much  more, 
and  in  which  they  crave  for  sympathy.  We 
should  not  have  such  dry  and  pointless  sermons 
if  our  Priests  knew  their  people  better.  The 
knowledge  of  our  people  and  the  knowledge  of 
God  are  the  two  factors  which  make  up  a  good 
sermon,  however  halting  be  the  delivery  and 
feeble  the  words.  I  am  speaking,  once  more,  in 
the  interest  of  the  clergy.  What  interest  can  there 
be  so  keen,  so  absorbing,  as  the  study  of  the  lives 
of  our  people  ?  Yes,  I  know  the  struggle  with 
sin,  our   Church   work   in   penance, — I   know   all 


THE  PRIEST  IN  FITS  PARISH.  109 

that.  But  this  is  absorbing  too :  their  tragic 
sorrows,  their  strange  joys,  their  awful  needs, 
their  family  interests !  Surely  it  is  an  immense 
privilege  to  be  allowed  to  enter  into — as  you  are 
allowed  to  enter  into^  where  you  are  trusted — 
the  family  life  of  your  people,  with  all  its  strong 
interests;  to  trace  the  little  ship  of  life  which 
put  to  sea  from  your  school,  and  to  see  it  cross 
the  river-bar,  and  go  out  into  the  deep,  and  come 
back  again  buffeted  and  broken,  and  perhaps 
almost  a  wreck,  but  still  with  a  warm  place  in 
the  heart  for  you,  next  to  the  old  father  and 
mother.  No  ;  he  would  not  come  to  church — 
there  you  sat  with  your  biretta  on  —  not  he. 
But  you  went  round  to  see  him,  you  talked  to 
him  at  the  street  corners ;  he  half  responded — 
perhaps  he  turned  away.  But  it  has  come  up  at 
last,  just  that  little  seed  between  the  stones  of  a 
very  hard  heart;  and  he  comes  to  church  now, 
he  is  confirmed,  he  is  a  communicant;  he  is  an 
experience  to  you,  so  that  you  do  not  despair. 

And  I  ask  you  again,  as  you  feel  cold  and  life- 
less, and  out  of  heart,  have  you  ever  looked  to  your 


no  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


people  for  comfort  ?  On  that  dark  day  when  you 
sat  at  home  and  wished  your  brother-curates  would 
come  in  and  talk,  when  you  said  you  were  worn 
out,  and  that  you  must  seek  other  work.  And  then 
you  went  into  the  parish ;  you  went  to  the  sick-bed 
where  a  man  was  lying,  the  bread-winner  of  the 
family,  with  no  wages,  only  a  small  club  allowance, 
with  no  comforts,  the  children  hungry  and  squalid 
around  him,  and  you  heard  him  say  so  quietly 
and  so  earnestly,  "It  is  all  what  pleases  God." 
And  you  felt  what  a  simple  faith  there  is  here, 
when  I,  with  so  much  to  be  thankful  for,  can  only 
grumble  and  complain !  There  are  lessons  of  refine- 
ment, lessons  of  charity,  courtesy,  self-denial,  which 
the  poor  have  to  teach  us,  which  we  would  not 
miss  for  the  world ;  quite  diff'erent  from  the  ordi- 
nary lessons  of  penitence  which  we  get  in  church. 
A  reaction,  thank  God,  is  setting  in,  and  when  we 
have  done  imitating  the  faults  of  other  people,  we 
shall  wake  up  to  the  solid  virtues  which  make  our 
ministry  in  the  English  Church  such  a  treasure  and 
such  a  force. 


LECTURE  V. 

THE  PRIEST   IN  HIS   LIFE  AND   CONVERSATION. 

"  The  memory  like  a  cloudless  air, 
The  conscience  like  a  sea  at  rest." 

I. 

It  has  been  well  said,  "  What  we  are  comes  before 
what  we  teach."  "  Conduct  and  character  are  the 
keys  of  Creed."  It  is  the  man,  after  all,  who  comes 
out  in  everything — the  ministrations,  the  sermons, 
the  direction,  the  parish  visiting.  We  may  wish 
that  it  were  otherwise.  We  may  decry — and 
rightly  decry — a  personal  ministry ;  it  is  dangerous 
and  artificial.  We  may  have  to  say  again  and 
again,  "Don't  cling  to  me;  act  for  yourselves." 
But  still  people  cling  to  the  person.  They  grudge 
Moses  the  time,  even,  which  he  spends  in  the  mount, 
and  will  make  a  golden  calf  if  he  is  not  there. 


PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


They  will  grudge  the  Divine  Teacher  His  time  of 
retirement  in  the  mountain,  and  will  not  give  Him 
leisure  so  much  as  to  eat.  We  know  the  truth  of 
the  XXVIth  Article,  that  "the  un worthiness  of 
the  Minister  "  does  not  hinder  the  grace  of  Christ 
in  the  Sacraments.  But  it  is  next  to  impossible  to 
get  our  people  practically  to  believe  it.  If  there  is 
a  Hophni  or  a  Phineas  in  the  ranks  of  the  Priest- 
hood, men,  for  their  sakes,  abhor  the  offering  of  the 
Lord.  If  there  is  an  Eli  on  the  seat  of  government, 
things  slide  from  bad  to  worse,  and  he  cannot  pull 
them  up.  There  is  an  old  belief  that  flowers  flourish 
best  under  the  hands  of  those  that  love  them. 
However  this  may  be  about  flowers,  it  is  true  as 
regards  the  souls  of  men — they  flourish  best  where 
there  is  a  loving  personal  touch,  which  is  furthest 
removed  from  ofiicialism. 

It  is  this  that  is  at  the  bottom  of  a  great  deal 
of  the  outcry  about  Sacerdotalism.  People  resent 
anything  which  is  merely  official,  or  domineering, 
or  removed  from  personal  sympathy.  And,  alas  !  on 
looking  back  over  our  career,  it  is  this  that  perhaps 
we  have  more  than  anything  else  to  deplore — the 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  LIFE  AND  CONVERSATION    1 13 

obtrusive  personality  which  has  just  ruined  the 
roundness  and  finish  of  our  work ;  the  hot  temper 
which  lost  us  the  cause  which  we  had  at  heart  at 
the  public  meeting,  or  gained  us  our  desire,  and 
sent  leanness  withal  into  our  soul,  as,  like  spoiled 
children,  we  experienced  the  disappointment  which 
resulted  from  merely  getting  our  own  way.  The 
self  which  cropped  up  in  sermons,  in  advice,  in 
visiting ;  the  old  breakage  which  suddenly  began 
to  twinge  and  wrench,  dating  back  to  a  youthful 
fall.  It  is  this  self  which,  for  good  or  for  evil, 
clings  to  us  like  a  shadow.  We  cannot  shake  it 
off.  We  shall  never  succeed  in  being  pure  officials ; 
at  least,  if  we  do,  it  is  only  to  minister  to  the  dead 
and  dreary  ghosts  of  men  and  women — formalists 
ministered  to  by  officialism.  The  great  teachers  of 
the  Tractarian  Movement  knew  this,  and  they  bent 
all  the  force  which  they  could  command  to  turn  a 
worldly,  self-pleasing  clergy  into  spiritual,  self- 
denying,  careful  Priests.  No  one  can  read  the  life 
of  Dr.  Pusey  or  Mr.  Keble  without  being  struck  by 
the  stern  self-discipline  which  they  practised,  the  re- 
solute attempt  to  combat  worldliness  in  themselves, 

I 


114  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

the  firm  endeavour  to  develop  clericalism  of  the 
best  kind,  and  to  recognize  that  many  things 
which  are  quite  permissible  to  a  layman  are  often 
undesirable — nay,  more,  unbecoming — in  a  Priest. 
And  who  can  say  how  much  the  movement,  which 
has  transformed  the  Church  of  England,  owed  to  the 
inner  life  and  devotion  of  those  who  were  its  prime 
movers  ?  "  What  do  they  say  at  Hursley  ?  "  It  is 
no  light  tribute  to  the  great  personality  of  that 
humble,  retiring  man  that,  "  when  all  else  had  been 
said  and  done,  people  would  wait  and  see  what 
came  from  there  before  they  made  up  their  minds 
as  to  the  path  of  duty."  ^  And  people  who  remem- 
ber the  giants  of  those  days  are  somewhat  like  the 
Jews  who  wept  when  the  foundations  of  the  New 
Temple  were  laid,  having  remembered  the  Temple 
which  preceded  it.  "  Yes,"  they  said,  "  it  is  all  very 
beautiful ;  but  where  is  the  Shechinah  ?  where  is  the 
Sacred  Fire,  the  Urim  and  Thummim,  the  Spirit  of 
Prophecy,  the  Ark  ? "  And  so  they  say  now, 
"  Yes,  it  is  all  very  beautiful — your  services,  your 
choir,  your  ritual — but  there  is  something  wanting. 

^  Dr.  Liddon,  «'  Clerical  Life  and  Work,"  p.  350. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  LIFE  AND  CONVERSA  TION.    115 

What  you  express  now  with  ceremonial  and  magni- 
ficent service,  they  were  able  to  express  by  the 
sheer  force  of  their  lives — the  sense  of  the  great 
visit  which  our  Blessed  Lord  makes  to  His  Church 
in  the  Sacrament  of  Holy  Communion  ! "  Look  at 
Dr.  Pusey  handling  Holy  Scripture !  See  him 
dealing,  as  has  been  described,  with  the  twenty- 
second  Psalm,  as  if  he  almost  shrunk  back  from 
entering  into  the  discussion  of  that  great  Psalm  of 
the  Passion ;  as  if  the  awful  mysteries  of  the  Cruci- 
fied Messiah  which  lurked  in  it  came  out  like  the 
devouring  cloud  of  glory,  and  made  it  impossible  to 
minister  there  before  the  Lord.  A  modern  com- 
mentator would  have  no  such  difficulty.  This  con- 
trast must  strike  us  with  wonder  and  fear,  lest  it 
be  true  that  we  have  lost  something.  Certainly  it 
is  beautiful  and  edifying  to  contemplate  even  the 
pages  of  their  biographies — their  intense  humility, 
their  sublime  reverence.  How  strangely  it  comes 
out  in  that  anecdote  told  us  of  Mr.  Keble,  when  he 
was  waiting  to  see  Froude  ofi"  by  the  coach,  and 
felt  that  he  ought  to  say  that  his  own  sense  of 
reverence   had  been  pained  in   conversation  ;   too 


Ii6  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


tender  to  rebuke,  too  brave  to  neglect  his  duty, 
you  remember  how,  just  as  his  friend  was  leaving 
him,  he  said,  "  Froude,  you  thought  Law's  '  Serious 
Call '  was  a  clever  book ;  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  you 
said  the  Day  of  Judgment  will  be  a  pretty  sight." 
And  Froude  said  this  speech  had  a  great  effect  on 
his  after-life !  ^ 

And  in  addition  to  their  reverence  there  was 
their  great  regard  for  authority.  They  had  to 
rouse  in  the  members  of  the  Episcopate  the  sense 
that  they  were  the  successors  of  the  Apostles,  and 
they  always  treated  them  as  such,  and  in  their 
conflict  with  individual  Bishops  this  was  never 
lost  sight  of.  The  whole  movement  was  based  on 
authority,  and  they  never  dreamed  that  the  idea 
of  the  Church  which  they  recovered  could  ever 
live  for  one  moment  without  it. 

II. 

What,  then,  should  be  the  characteristics  of  that 
inner  life  which  is  beating  so  strongly  beneath  our 

'  "  The  Oxford  Movement,"  by  Dean  Church,  p.  25. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  LIFE  AND  CONVERSATION.    117 

outward  ministration,  as  to  make  or  mar  in  the 
eyes  of  our  people  the  holy  profession  which  God 
has  called  us  to  undertake  ?  Remember  that  re- 
ligion is  hard  to  the  natural  man;  the  road  is 
narrow  which  leads  unto  life,  and  the  gate  is 
strait,  and  there  are  few  people  who  traverse 
that  way. 

(1)  Surely  we  ought  first  of  all  to  set  our  people 
the  example  of  how  to  bear  the  Cross.  We  are 
in  danger  of  forgetting,  in  days  of  great  material 
progress,  that  this  is  set  before  us  again  and  again 
by  our  Blessed  Lord  as  the  elementary  condition 
of  discipleship  —  bearing  the  Cross.  And,  re- 
member, the  Cross  is  no  plaything,  but  a  heavy 
burden  of  rough  wood  whose  pain  is  constant,  on 
which  we  are  crucified,  that  thereby  we  may  be 
elevated  towards  God  as  a  victim ;  that  we  may 
expiate  our  sins,  and  be  a  comfort  to  others,  who 
without  us  would  suffer  only  like  the  impenitent 
thief,  and  be  unworthy  communicants  in  the 
Sacrament  of  pain. 

I  suppose  it  would  lead  us  to  bear  with  gentle- 
ness, with  resignation,  with  joy,  those  things  which 


ii8  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

God  has  to  put  upon  us  all  for  our  perfecting.  It 
is  rather  a  sad  thing  that  we  have  had  to  talk  and 
think  so  much  lately  about  clerical  incomes  and 
clerical  preferment.  Do  you  think  there  are  some 
of  our  people  looking  on  and  saying,  "Ah,  I 
thought  so ;  now  he  has  got  to  feel  some  of  the 
things  I  have  to  put  up  with — working  without 
a  rise,  full  time  and  bad  wages  —  he  calls  out 
loudly  enough  :  why  should  not  I "  ?  Thank  God, 
they  have  also  been  able  to  witness  really  splendid 
examples  of  clerical  devotion.  They  have  seen  in 
many  cases  the  parish  Priest  on  the  sharp  cross  of 
actual  destitution  and  want,  suffering  without  a 
murmur,  cheerfully  and  patiently,  and  doing  his 
work  at  a  tremendous  sacrifice.  We  must  never 
forget  what  beautiful  instances  of  this  there  have 
been  in  recent  years,  and  how  powerful  for  good 
these  examples  have  been.  And  when  God's  Cross 
comes  to  us  in  sickness,  or  loss  of  money,  or  some 
acute  disappointment ;  when  we  seem  to  be  left 
behind,  forgotten,  unnoticed,  do  let  our  people  see 
an  example  of  bearing  the  Cross  !  Let  them  see 
that  these  things  elevate  and  not  sour,  that  they 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  LIFE  AND  CONVERSATION.    119 

are  accepted — "  We  indeed  justly ;  for  we  receive 
the  due  reward  of  our  deeds''^ — and  that  they 
soften  and  make  us  sympathetic,  so  that  we  can 
bring  to  others  the  comfort  wherewith  we  our- 
selves are  comforted  of  God.  And  then,  further, 
ought  not  our  people  to  see  in  us  less  shrinking 
than  they  sometimes  see  from  the  fasting  and  dis- 
cipline of  the  Church  ?  It  may  be  we  have 
systematized  fasting  more  than  we  did.  God  grant 
that  we  may  continue  to  do  so.  But  ought  we  to 
be  more  courageous  about  this  than  we  are  ?  ought 
we  to  try  and  observe — at  least  in  some  way,  so 
that  others  may  see  —  the  Fridays,  the  Ember 
Days,  the  Vigils,  the  Eogation  Days,  the  Forty 
Days  of  Lent  ?  It  is  disagreeable  thus  to  make 
ourselves  conspicuous;  so  it  is  to  say  our  Grace 
when  others  do  not.  It  is  setting  ourselves  up  as 
more  particular  than  other  people.  But  there  are 
times  when  we  must  let  our  light  shine  before 
men.  How  else  are  we  to  get  the  proper  position 
of  fasting  recognized  ?  A  simple  rule,  that  we  do 
not  dine  out  on  fast  days,  and  that  we  wiU  try  to 
*  St.  Luke  xxiii.  41. 


120  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

observe,  as  far  as  health  will  allow,  the  rule  of  the 
Church,  is  surely  a  very  plain  and  obvious  duty. 
And  if  we  are  obliged  to  curtail  this,  or  seek  dis- 
pensation, surely  we  should  act  in  the  spirit  of 
this  prayer :  "  Blessed  Lord,  Who  for  our  sakes 
didst  fast  forty  days  and  forty  nights,  give  to  us 
whose  faith  is  imperfect  and  bodies  less  subdued, 
grace  to  follow  Thee  more  distantly  in  a  contrite 
and  humbled  spirit,  and  grant  that  the  sense  of 
this  our  weakness,  which  we  meekly  confess  before 
Thee,  may  in  the  end  add  strength  to  our  faith  and 
seriousness  to  our  repentance.  Who  liveth  and 
reignest  with  the  Father  and  the  Holy  Ghost,  ever 
one  God,  world  without  end.     Amen." 

But  I  suppose  we  ought  to  go  further,  and  look 
out,  each  for  himself,  for  opportunities  of  self- 
denial.  The  following  passage  in  a  well-known 
volume  of  sermons  is  worthy  of  our  considera- 
tion :  ^  "  But,  besides  this,  there  are  other  modes  of 
self-denial  to  try  your  faith  and  sincerity,  which 
it  may  be  right  just  to  mention.  It  may  so 
happen  that  the  sin  you  are  most  liable  to  is  not 
1  Newman,  "  Parochial  and  Plain  Sermons,"  vol.  i.  p.  69. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  LIFE  AND  CONVERSATION.   121 

called  forth  every  day.  For  instance,  anger  and 
passion  are  irresistible,  perhaps,  when  provoked, 
and  when  you  are  off  your  guard;  so  that  the 
occasion  is  over,  and  you  have  failed  before  you 
were  well  aware  of  its  coming.  It  is  right,  then, 
almost  to  find  out  for  yourselves  daily  self-denials ; 
and  this  because  our  Lord  bids  you  take  up  your 
cross  daily,  and  because  it  proves  your  earnestness, 
and  because  by  doing  so  you  strengthen  your 
general  power  of  self-mastery,  and  come  to  have 
such  an  habitual  command  of  yourself  as  will  be  a 
defence  ready  prepared  when  the  season  of  temp- 
tation comes.  Rise  up,  then,  in  the  morning  with 
the  purpose  that,  please  God,  the  day  shall  not 
pass  without  its  self-denial — a  self-denial  in  inno- 
cent pleasures  and  tastes,  if  none  occurs  to  mortify 
sin.  Let  your  very  rising  from  your  bed  be  a 
self-denial ;  let  your  meals  be  self-denials.  Deter- 
mine to  yield  to  others  in  things  indifferent,  to  go 
out  of  your  way  in  small  matters,  to  inconvenience 
yourself  (so  that  no  direct  duty  suffers  by  it), 
rather  than  you  should  not  meet  with  your  daily 
discipline.     This  was  the  Psalmist's  method,  who 


122  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 


was,  as  it  were,  'punished  all  day  long,  and 
chastened  every  morning.'^  It  was  St.  Paul's 
method,  who  'kept  under,'  or  bruised  'his  body, 
and  brought  it  into  subjection.'^  This  is  one 
great  end  of  fasting.  A  man  says  to  himself, 
'  How  am  I  to  know  I  am  in  earnest  ? '  I  would 
suggest  to  him — make  some  sacrifice;  do  some 
distasteful  thing,  which  you  are  not  actually 
obliged  to  do  (so  that  it  be  lawful),  to  bring  home 
to  your  mind  that,  in  fact,  you  do  love  your 
Saviour,  that  you  do  hate  sin,  that  you  do  hate 
your  sinful  nature,  and  that  you  have  put  aside 
the  present  world." 

I  suppose  most  of  us  have  had  to  give  up  some- 
thing, some  a  great  deal  in  the  way  of  worldly 
amusement  and  comfort,  when  we  were  ordained. 
Have  we  given  up  enough?  Not  because  the 
things  are  wrong  in  themselves,  but  because  they 
are  unclerical.  We  frequently  use  the  sign  of  the 
Cross.  Is  it  really  traced  over  our  use  of  food,  of 
sleep,  of  time,  of  recreation?  Surely  we  Clergy 
ought  to  show  our  people  the  way,  in  reducing 
^^Ps.  Ixxiii.  13.  2  1  Cor.  ix.  27. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  LIFE  AND  CONVERSATION.    123 

that  large  common  ground  which  so  many  seem 
to  think  may  be  allowed  to  exist  in  their  lives, 
which  belongs  neither  to  themselves,  nor  to  God, 
nor  to  their  people,  but  is  a  sort  of  unclaimed  waste 
space,  where  we  meet  the  World,  and  sometimes 
the  Flesh  and  the  Devil — a  large  strip  of  neutral 
ground.  How  many  difficulties  we  meet  here; 
when  we  just  spend  an  hour  in  smoking  with  the 
young  fellows,  merely  to  show  that  we  are  one  of 
them  !  When  Peter  stands  by  the  fire  and  warms 
himself  without  any  idea  of  breaking  with  his 
adorable  Master;  and  yet  not  exactly  wishing  to 
declare  himself  then.  That  tiresome  maid;  that 
awkward  turn  in  the  conversation;  "surely  thou 
art  one  of  them  ?  "  "  Let  us  hear  what  the  Clergy- 
man has  to  say ! "  And  yet  how  much  we  want 
that  common  land  for  building  purposes.  If  we 
could  only  succeed  in  taking  in  some  of  it,  we 
should  hear  less  of  the  persistent  cry,  "No  time 
to  read — no  time  to  build  up  by  solid  learning  the 
foundations  of  the  faith ! "  They  put  up  an 
advertisement  in  the  railway  stations,  stating  how 
many  thousand  miles  of  one  form  of  cigarette  are 


124  PRIESTLY  IDEALS, 

smoked  daily.  How  many  five  minutes  in  the 
day  do  I  spend  on  my  own  enjoyment,  or  allow  to 
lie  quite  unused  ?  All  that  neutral  ground — that 
ground  where  we  meet  people,  and  do,  as  we 
profess,  so  much  indirect  good—it  may  be  well 
filled ;  but  we  have  gone  very  much  in  the  opposite 
direction  to  old  methods.  We  are  so  afraid  of  cant, 
that  we  seem  to  be  as  afraid  of  talking  to  a  man 
about  his  soul  as  we  should  think  it  indelicate  to 
ask  him  about  his  income;  while  there  almost 
seems  a  danger  of  thinking  that  smoking  over  a 
subject  is  equivalent  to  praying  over  it. 

I  venture  to  think  we  make  a  terrible  mistake 
in  being  so  shy  in  these  matters,  that  there  are 
hundreds  and  hundreds  of  people  who  are  not 
really  so  shy  as  the  Clergyman  is,  and  who  some- 
times wonder  why  he  does  not  come  to  the 
business  of  his  life  just  as  readily  as  any  other 
professional  man.  No;  I  wish  we  tried  more  to 
feel  that  we  are  consecrated  men,  and  that  we,  if 
any,  have  no  common  land  to  waste ;  that  whether 
we  eat  or  drink,  or  whatever  we  do,  we  wish  to 
do  all  to  the  glory  of  God ;  and  that  we  wish  to 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HJS  LIFE  AND  CONVERSATION.    125 


bring  into  captivity  every  thought  to  the  obedience 
of  Christ. 

(2)  In  the  second  place,  we  ought  to  be  not  only 
marked  with  the  Cross  very  definitely,  but  we 
ought  to  be  making  a  constant  study  of  our 
profession ;  there  is  the  study  of  books,  the  study 
of  God,  and  the  study  of  human  nature,  and  the 
study  of  our  own  professional  methods.  Now,  I 
have  already  touched  on  the  importance  of  read- 
ing ;  I  suppose  we  should  nearly  all  agree  on  that 
point ;  what  we  should  like  to  know  is,  rather, 
how  to  find  time  for  it.  What  can  one  say,  in 
the  whirl  and  the  utterly  overwhelming  tide  of 
work  which  carries  you  along,  dear  brethren? 
Still,  I  am  now  speaking  of  the  very  busiest  life. 
I  hold  it  more  or  less  a  duty,  if  we  are  to  deal 
with  men  and  women,  that  we  should  read,  each 
day,  some  of  the  Newspaper.  It  is  terribly 
irritating  to  keen  active  minds  to  hear  us  peace- 
fully discoursing  about  events  which  happened 
thousands  of  years  ago,  when  we  have  not  tried  to 
connect  them  with  passing  incidents  of  absorbing- 
interest,  which  afiect  the  welfare  of  our  people — 


126  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

like  the  country  squire,  who  is  said  to  have  gone 
out  with  his  harriers  between  the  positions  of  the 
contending  armies  on  the  morning  of  the  battle  of 
Edgehill.  Without  preaching  sermons  on  subjects 
of  the  day — which  I,  for  one,  abhor — we  ought  to 
have  these  same  subjects  of  the  day  clearly  before 
our  minds  in  our  presentation  of  the  gospel. 
Contemporary  history,  as  it  is  there  unrolled 
before  us,  is  a  sacred  and  a  serious  thing.  And 
yet  how  easy  it  is  to  waste  time  over  the  Paper ; 
to  let  it  engross  the  precious  morning  hours ! 
Here  is  something  which  can  be  read,  for  the  most 
part,  in  recreation  time. 

Then  there  are  the  odd  five  minutes — ten 
minutes — between  appointments,  when  we  are 
kept  waiting,  which  is  not  unusual.  Are  there 
not  books  which  we  can  keep  on  our  table,  which 
we  can  take  up  at  these  odd  moments,  adapted  to 
this  fragmentary  style  of  acquiring  knowledge  ? 
And  then,  is  it  not  possible  to  get  one  solid  hour 
somewhere,  at  least,  on  most  days  ?  Archbishop 
Benson's  day  was,  if  any,  a  full  one;  yet  one 
cannot  read  without  personal  shame  how  a  man. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  LIFE  AND  CONVERSATION.   127 

pressed  as  he  was,  contrived  to  secure  on  the 
busiest  days  that  serious  food  which  his  soul 
needed  by  a  vigorous  exercise  of  self-discipline. 
The  author  of  "  An  Appreciation  of  Archbishop 
Benson,"  in  the  Times,  has  told  us  :  "  His  life  of 
incessant  labour  did  not  stop  him  from  reading — 
and  reading  stiff  books — though  the  reading  was 
generally  done  when  he  ought  long  to  have  gone 
to  bed,^  He  kept  up  with  modern  literature  of 
many  sorts.  Whenever  he  got  an  opportunity  he 
worked  diligently  at  St.  Cyprian;  but  the  Bible 
was  his  chief  study,  as  became  a  Priest.  No 
morning  came  without  his  making  time  for  long 
and  solid  work  upon  it  before  joining  his  family. 
All  that  minute  and  exact  scholarship,  of  which 
the  foundation  was  laid  at  Birmingham,  was 
brought  to  bear  upon  it.  Nor  was  he  minute  only 
in  his  analysis ;  he  loved  to  read  large  pieces 
together,  so  as  to  enter  into  the  general  tenor  and 
catch  the  drift  of  what  he  was  reading.     Religion 


^  This  is  not  to  be  imitated  by  every  one.  There  is,  with  many 
people,  as  much  self-denial  to  be  exercised  in  going  to  bed  at 
night  as  there  is  in  getting  up  in  the  morning. 


128  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

was  a  profound  reality  for  him ;  he  was  resolved 
to  sound  the  deeps  of  it."  This  is,  I  fancy,  very 
often  a  mere  matter  of  arrangement.  It  is  the 
fashion  of  the  present  day,  not  only  to  have  time 
for  nothing,  but  to  be  proud  of  having  time  for 
nothing.  And,  I  suppose,  in  this,  as  in  other 
things,  we  ought  not  to  undertake  more  than  our 
strength  can  stand,  while,  I  suppose,  that  the 
ideal  man,  as  he  reserves  time  for  meals  and  for 
bed,  would  also  reserve  time  for  reading. 

I  would  only  dwell  now  on  one  other  region 
of  reading — I  mean  reading  in  the  book  of 
experience.  Here  is  a  book  which  again  and  again 
God  tells  us  that  He  has  given  us  to  use.  "  Hear 
My  law,  O  My  people :  incline  your  ears  unto  the 
words  of  My  mouth.  I  will  open  My  mouth  in  a 
parable :  I  will  declare  hard  sentences  of  old ; 
which  we  have  heard  and  known:  and  such  as 
our  fathers  have  told  us ;  that  we  should  not  hide 
them  from  the  children  of  the  generations  to  come  : 
but  to  show  the  honour  of  the  Lord,  His  mighty 
and  wonderful  works  that  He  hath  done.  He 
made  a  covenant  with  Jacob,  and  gave   Israel   a 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  LIFE  AND  CONVERSATION.   129 

law:  which  He  commanded  our  forefathers  to 
teach  their  children;  that  their  posterity  might 
know  it:  and  the  children  which  were  yet 
unborn ;  to  the  intent  that  when  they  came  up : 
they  might  show  their  children  the  same."  '  Why 
are  we  so  dull  in  reading  our  communicants  the 
lessons  of  experience?  Are  there  no  lessons  of 
your  school  life  which  you  can  impart  to  those 
young  boys,  who  have  very  much  the  same  trials 
and  temptations  as  you  had  ?  Are  there  no 
lessons  out  of  the  hard  experience  of  your  life 
for  these  young  men  whom  you  are  so  shy  in 
helping  ?  Do  you  not  say,  "  If  only  I  had  been 
helped ;  if  only  I  had  known ;  if  only  a  word  had 
been  said  to  me  "  ?  Are  we  practically  so  shy  and 
dull  that  we  are  acting  in  the  same  way  towards  those 
under  our  care  ?  Do  not  let  us  fall  into  the  snare 
of  seeking  to  be  popular,  or  saying  pleasant  things, 
or  speaking  what  we  know  will  easily  go  down. 
This  is  akin  in  our  personal  ministrations  to  that 
dismal  mistake  of  "  pleasant  afternoons  in  church." 
Not  but  that  it  is  extremely  important  to  keep 

»  Ps.  Ixxviii.  1-7. 


130  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

alive  our  sense  o£  humour.  It  might  save  us  from 
a  Polychrome  Bible  and  strange  theories.  It 
would  save  us  certainly  from  some  of  those  curious 
notices  which  we  hear  and  read  in  churches; 
while  it  would  help  us  not  to  take  too  seriously 
the  follies  of  the  fool,  who  says  there  is  no  God. 
Our  Blessed  Lord  saw  the  rich  young  ruler  whom 
He  loved  go  away.  He  once  was  left  almost  alone 
with  His  disciples.  There  are  times  when  we 
must  be  very  stern  and  very  uncompromising, 
just  as  there  are  times  when  we  must  be  very 
tender,  and  this  is  only  to  be  learnt  by  long  and 
patient  studies  in  character  drawn  from  experi- 
ence. Ah,  yes !  Here  is  a  use  to  which  we  can 
put  our  own  sad  past.  It  is  not  all  loss,  after  all ; 
it  stays  me  from  being  Pharisaical;  it  stays  me 
from  casting  the  hasty  stone ;  it  stays  me  from 
trifling;  it  makes  me  intensely  in  earnest;  it 
makes  me  long  with  all  my  heart  to  rescue  and 
relieve.  As  the  poor  penitent  kneels  before  me, 
I  see  myself  once  more.  There  are  my  old 
troubles,  my  old  difiiculties.  I  know  what  helped 
me.     Poor  fellow  1    I  must  make  him  feel,  I  must 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  LIFE  AND  CONVERSATION    131 

make  him  smart ;  but  I  can  help  him.  I  know 
now  why  God  has  given  such  power  unto  men 
in  the  wondrous  strength  of  sympathy.  Practically, 
in  our  ministerial  life,  we  have  a  wonderful  oppor- 
tunity of  witnessing  the  best  evidence  for  the 
confirmation  of  the  Faith.  We  can  see  the  Faith 
at  work;  we  can  see  the  fearful  struggle  with 
evil,  such  as  is  described  in  the  pages  of  Holy 
Scripture :  the  awful  power  of  sin,  and  the 
incidence  of  temptation,  while,  at  the  same  time, 
we  can  trace  the  effect  of  Atonement,  of  Sancti- 
fi  cation,  and  of  Sacramental  grace. 

Are  we  making  full  proof  of  what  we  have  ? 
Do  we  know  the  strength  of  those  stores  which 
have  been  deposited  with  us,  which  we  are  keeping 
from  our  people,  while  we  let  them  put  up  with 
the  panaceas  of  the  world?  Do  we  know  the 
edge  of  the  sharp  instrument  which  God  has 
given  us  to  use  ?  Can  we  trace  out  the  spiritual 
anatomy  of  a  soul  ?  We  should  be  seeking  to  be 
spiritual  experts.  There  are  many  seeking  to  be 
experts  in  all  branches  of  science,  to  be  critics, 
improvers,  reformers;  but  how  few  are  trying  to 


132  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

be  spiritually  excellent,  and  to  be,  before  all  things, 
profound  and  accomplished  ecclesiastics  ! 

(3)  And  then  there  comes,  lastly,  at  the  end  of  this 
course  of  lectures,  the  old  sign,  which  we  long  that 
our  people  should  see  in  us — the  sign  of  holiness. 
We  long  that  our  people  should  see  our  faces  shine, 
as  a  token  that  we  have  been  talking  with  God. 
But  the  glory  dies  away ;  we  put  a  veil  over  our 
faces;  we  shrink  within  ourselves  at  the  thought 
of  the  startling  and  ironical  discrepancy  between 
our  words  and  the  person  who  utters  them; 
and  we  do  feel  that  if  only  we  could  be  holy,  we 
should  be  the  happiest  people  in  the  world,  and 
our  parishes  would  be  like  flowers  bathed  in  the 
sunlight;  we  should  be  a  centre  of  brightness 
and  heat  and  joy  wherever  we  went.  Holiness ! 
We  have  been  reading  this  last  year,  in  the  news- 
papers, the  account  of  a  town,  not  so  far  from  here, 
desolated  with  an  epidemic,  which  has  only  just 
left  it.  There  were  the  springs  which  fed  the 
town  reservoir  gushing  up  bright  and  clear,  but 
very  near  the  surface,  and  very  unprotected.  And 
we  have  read  how  encampments  of  rough  people. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  LIFE  AND  CONVERSATION.    133 

squatting  in  the  neighbourhood,  caused  defilements 
to  percolate  into  the  stream,  and  the  water  was 
poisoned  and  the  town  was  stricken.  Do  we  look 
back  on  our  life  and  see  its  little  springs  bursting 
up  in  the  fresh  green  surroundings  of  home  ?  And 
then  came  school,  with  all  its  opening  opportuni- 
ties, and  with  its  work  and  its  treasures  there 
oozed  in  the  subtle  defilements  which  poisoned  our 
unprotected  life.  Larger  and  coarser  were  the 
occupants  who  settled  on  it  as  life  went  on.  Its 
very  activities  seemed  to  take  away  its  sweetness 
and  its  freshness.  Perhaps,  as  we  look  back — 
God  grant  that  it  may  not  be  so ! — our  conversa- 
tion brought  sickness,  and  our  presence  was  not 
a  presence  of  health  to  those  whom  we  reached 
with  the  stream  of  our  life.  It  is  one  of  the 
saddest  things  that  a  man  can  brood  over,  if  he 
has  to  think  of  some  soul  whom  he  has  injured, 
whom  his  own  penitence  cannot  affect,  perhaps 
his  heartfelt  prayers  hardly  reach — perhaps  some 
one,  unknown  to  him  even,  who  just  tasted  of  that 
poisoned  stream,  or  who  languished  under  an 
unhealthy   influence.      And,   in   addition   to   this, 

K  3 


134  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

how  difficult  it  is  to  work  it  out !  What  a  terrible 
thing  is  a  Priest's  fall,  a  clerical  scandal !  So  often 
the  recrudescence  of  an  old  defilement,  which 
trickled  in  many  years  ago,  and  has  never  been 
cleansed  away.  As  we  aim  after  holiness,  as  we 
long  for  its  mark  on  our  characters,  certainly  we 
must  ask  ourselves,  "Is  the  stream  of  my  life 
clean  ?  Has  it  been  purified  in  the  precious  blood 
of  Jesus  ?  Or  am  I  trusting  to  the  lapse  of  years 
or  the  general  purifying  effect  of  time,  and  then 
wonder  that  my  people  are  so  little  refreshed  by 
the  brackish  water  of  only  a  half-cleansed  life  ?  " 

And  i£  my  life  is  clean,  is  it  fresh?  Consider 
what  we  have  tried  to  think  over  together — 
the  life  of  Sacrament,  Prayer,  and  Meditation! 
All  round  our  life  there  are  springs — openings 
through  which  comes  down  the  fresh  inrush  of 
heavenly  grace.  Nothing  will  make  up  for  it  if 
they  are  closed.  A  bad  Sunday  will  make  all  the 
week  stale  and  lifeless.  A  prayerless  morning  will 
make  all  our  spiritual  efforts  vain  and  unprofitable. 
They  will  be  like  delicate  work  done  by  one  only 
half  awake  or  in   a  fit   of  irritation,  so  that  he 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  LIFE  AND  CONVERSATION.    135 

cannot  work  with  patience.  A  day  without 
meditation  will  be  like  a  day  without  our  regular 
exercise.  Our  work  will  be  done  formally  and 
mechanically,  to  the  ultimate  injury  of  our  spiritual 
health. 

And  then,  is  our  life  full?  If  only  we  could 
realize  the  intense  interest  of  all  that  is  around 
us,  and  the  correspondences  whereby  we  can  reach 
out  to  all  the  riches  of  the  spiritual  world,  what 
a  different  life  this  would  be  !  It  may  be,  like 
Jacob,  we  lie  down  tired  and  disappointed  upon 
the  hard  pillow  of  a  monotonous  life.  We  are 
tempted  to  think  we  are  failures.  At  school  we 
were  told  we  were  going  to  be  the  supplanters, 
we  won  our  boyish  prizes ;  at  the  university 
we  gained  our  distinctions,  we  were  known,  and 
we  were  popular ; — and  now  here  we  are,  failures  ! 
'•'  The  supplanter  "  and  its  promise  is  a  delusion. 
We  have  tried  and  failed.  When,  lo  !  at  our  very 
head,  out  of  the  dreary  streets,  with  their  depress- 
ing squalor  and  their  exacting  toil,  rises  the  golden 
ladder  which  joins  earth  and  heaven,  and  grave 
angels  are  ascending  and  descending  on  it.     There 


136  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

is  something  greater  than  being  a  supplanter; 
something  greater  than  prizes  and  benefices  and 
"  monstroT  digito  prcetereuntiumJ'  The  supplanter 
Jacob  may  become  Israel  the  prince.  The  Altar 
is  open  to  him,  with  its  wondrous  stair  opening 
out  into  the  ever- vanishing  distance  of  increasing 
glory.  To  be  so  very  near  to  Christ,  to  bring  Him 
to  the  people,  to  be  linked  on  to  the  great  sacrifice 
in  heaven! — The  Church  becomes  dearer  than  it 
was  before,  as  I  am  able  to  say,  "  This  is  none 
other  but  the  house  of  God,  and  this  is  the  gate 
of  heaven."  ^ 

And  the  golden  ladder  starts  up  from  the 
schools  which  I  thought  so  dull  and  uninteresting. 
How  strangely  those  young  lives  wind  themselves 
round  me;  I  wonder  that  I  ever  despised  those 
whose  angels  see  God  in  heaven ;  their  little 
sorrows,  their  easily  produced  joys,  their  losses, 
their  sins,  their  sicknesses,  their  early  deaths — 
how  impossible  it  is  to  despise  them ;  how  anxious 
I  am  to  help  them  up  the  golden  stair ! 

And  the  ladder  reaches   up  from   the   squalid, 

'  Gen.  xxviii.  17. 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  LIFE  AND  CONVERSATION.   137 

festering  courts  and  the  dirty  houses  around  me. 
And  I  find  Jesus  Himself  in  His  poor ;  I  minister 
to  Jesus  in  the  sick  and  afiiicted;  I  clothe  Him; 
I  visit  Him.  I  bear  my  people  on  my  heart, 
and  their  sorrows  drive  out  mine,  and  their  joys 
enter  into  my  cold  heart  and  make  it  warm  with 
sympathy. 

Happiness  does  not  come  from  our  surround- 
ings; we  bring  it  with  us.  Success  is  not  the 
lucky  chance  of  a  man  who  has  got  on,  but  comes 
from  doing  the  work  which  God  has  given  us 
to  do  with  all  our  might. 

We  are  sons  of  a  glorious  Church;  we  have 
inherited  a  splendid  birthright.  Let  us  see  to  it 
that  we  adorn  it.  "  The  lot  is  fallen  unto  me  in 
a  fair  ground ;  yea,  I  have  a  goodly  heritage."  ^ 
A  sure  secret  of  failure  is  to  disparage  what  we 
have  got,  and  to  try  to  be  one  thing  while  we 
really  are  another;  to  mourn  over  our  meagre 
Liturgy  in  comparison  with  others,  ancient  and 
modern,  when  perhaps  we  have  never  tested  or 
made  full  proof  of  the  excellences  of  the  one  we 
'  Ps.  xvi.  7. 


138  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

have.  Should  we  find  devotion  any  easier,  or  the 
difficulties  of  concentration  any  less  hard,  with 
another  Liturgy  ?  It  is  not  the  Liturgy  which  is 
to  blame.  We  mourn  over  the  Babel  voices  of 
the  Church  of  England,  when  perhaps  we  have 
not  as  yet  submitted  ourselves  to  the  supreme 
virtue  of  obedience.  It  has  been  pointed  out  that 
there  was  a  period  in  the  incident  of  Babel  when 
the  builders  all  spoke  indeed  the  same  language, 
but  were  all  fatally  in  the  wrong. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  we  are  rapidly  approach- 
ing a  crisis,  when  much  of  what  we  have  gained 
will  be  lost  if  we  do  not  fall  into  line  and  stop 
the  petty  larceny  of  private  judgment.  It  is 
ironical  that  those  who  have  laboured  to  uphold 
the  Catholic  ideal  instead  of  the  Protestant  substi- 
tute which  seemed  to  have  usurped  its  place,  should 
be  actively  promulgating  the  essential  doctrine 
of  the  barest  Protestantism,  viz.  private  judgment, 
as  opposed  to  authority.  It  is  wonderful,  as  we 
look  back,  to  see  what  has  been  achieved.  There 
is  no  limit  to  what  we  may  achieve  yet,  if  we  go 
forward  in  order,  in  submission  to  the  principles 


THE  PRIEST  IN  HIS  LIFE  AND  CONVERSATION.   139 


which  are  absolutely  bound  up  in  the  Catholic 
Faith.  Here  is  a  contribution  which  we  may  add 
to  the  great  cause  of  Church  progress,  we  who 
have  entered  into  the  labours  and  martyrdom 
of  other  and  greater  men,  to  consolidate  what 
they  have  won  for  us;  to  have  a  firm  hopeful- 
ness in  the  immense  future  which  lies  before  the 
Church  of  England ;  to  pray  and  to  work  for  the 
reunion  of  Christendom,  not  by  belittling  our  own 
Church,  or  minimizing  the  good  we  have,  but  by 
showing  that  we  are  proud  of  her,  and  that  if  we 
are  ready  to  make  any  concessions  which  may  be 
right,  we  are  by  no  means  prepared  to  say  that 
they  must  all  be  made  on  our  side ;  while  before 
all  things  we  shall  make  it  clear  that  we  can 
never  play  with  truth,  but  that  rather  we  shall 
be  seeking  to  strengthen  with  dogmatic  fulness 
the  more  ornate  worship  which  an  aesthetic  age 
seems  to  tolerate  and  even  desire,  but  not  always 
with  a  zeal  according  to  knowledge. 

Above  all,  we  will  aim  at  the  fuller  develop- 
ment in  our  own  souls  of  that  holiness  which 
ever  must  be  the  distinguishing  badge  and  glory 


140  PRIESTLY  IDEALS. 

of  the  Priesthood  ;  in  a  life  marked  with  the 
Cross;  in  a  life  which  exhibits  a  knowledge  of 
God's  law,  and  a  delight  in  all  that  He  has 
revealed ;  and  in  a  personal  life,  clean,  fresh,  full, 
alive  unto  God,  watchful,  eager  for  His  work, 
devoted  to  the  Church  of  England,  of  which  we 
are  proud  to  be  the  sons. 

"  Spernere  mundum,  spernere  nullum,  speruere  sese, 
Spernere  sperni  se;   quatuor  hsec  bona  sunt." 


PRINTED   BY   WILLIAM  CLOWES  AND  SONS,    LIMITED, 
LONDON   AND   BECCLES. 


DATE  DUE 

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